Sympathy for My Enemy
by Timuron
Summary: After Star Fox went bankrupt, Fox McCloud accepted the CDF's offer to be a captain. While he struggles to be in a position where he has to take order, Corneria declares a new war against Venom for reasons he isn't allowed to know. Venom has been crippled and powerless for years now, for what reason is it being bombarded to kingdom come?
1. Chapter 1 Reality Check

The Great Fox II sat idle in space over the night side of Papetoon. The ship was nearly empty, so empty you could hear the ship settling. The metal walls had a faint stain from leaks of some sort and were crying for maintenance. The three remaining members of Star Fox were trying to sleep. Fox and Krystal slept together in the best bedroom on the ship while Slippy slept in what used to be Falco's room right across the hallway from them.

Krystal laid on the edge of the bed. Her bloodshot eyes remained open. She pretty much hadn't blinked for an hour. The white linen sheets were constantly shifting on and off of her and even out from under her. The creaking drilled into her ears. It was Fox, her new husband. Fox just kept rotating and grunting. His eyes were closed but he sure was not asleep.

Fox laid on his side at the edge of his bed in between numerous orientations. He fidgeted at least one a minute, mostly twice. His eyes were clenching shut with all of his might. It was as if he was trying to lift something rather than perform a basic bodily function.

He had a dizzying swirl of turmoil inside his head that had been building up over the past few months. It had all decided to come to a breaking point tonight, disabling the poor vulpine male for the night. He clenched in dread as his mind plunged into a lucid vision.

_~x~_

_It was three months ago. The team had just completed an escort mission, the first mission in weeks. They were grateful even if it wasn't a huge check compared to previous adventures. All four of them were going to a bar in Corneria City for the occasion; Fox, Slippy, Krystal, and Falco._

_ When they landed, the streets of Corneria City bustled as normal. The people ambled as normal. All tall buildings echoed the drills of reconstruction. The bar kept itself dim and sheltered from the afternoon sun and noise. Few enough patrons visited the bar for one to hear out their individual conversations. The apathetic looking bartender sat and shined glassware while facing the door._

_ A little draft came in from the door opening., he would had glanced then return to his cleaning had the door in question not had been opened by none other than the Star Fox team! He dropped his glass shattering onto the floor and paused before addressing them jovially. "Hey, look everyone! It's Star Fox and his friends from the wars!". _

_Fox corrected him "That's my team, my name is Fox McCloud" and then the other patrons turned around to look, all of them stopping what they were doing to cheer and toast to his presence with much enthusiasm. _

"_You knew I'd never charge you; we all owe you everything! Go take a seat anywhere you want!" the Bartender bleated. _

_The team promptly sat in a corner of the bar with more privacy as the other patrons attempted to return to their original mundane conversations about work gossip and some politics of course._

"_Fox, I thought that you said you told Peppy to come," Krystal asked Fox as she looked at the wine menus. She was probably going to get something blue._

"_I did, but he said he needed to take a rain check. He said he sprained his leg and needed rest."_

"_Aw, well I hope he feels better soon," Krystal uttered in respect for Peppy. "I think I'll have the Oran Berry Wine. That's his favorite right? It would be like he was here with us in an odd way."_

"_Yes, I believe it is," Fox sighed._

_Falco patted Fox's back. "Don't threat over anything, he's fine. We'll have lunch with him some other day."_

"_Thanks Falco, it's just that this outing in particular was supposed to be kind of special."_

"_Special?" Slippy squeaked._

"…_Yeah," Fox said as he felt the ring box, he had put in his pocket earlier that day._

_Krystal looked over at Fox, seeing his thoughts, "Oh, I think I see what Fox means now," Krystal said blushing._

_*Shit I forgot she was psychic, * Fox thought to himself as he started to sweat. "Y-you do?"_

"_Most likely," she told him honestly._

_Falco darted his head back and forth between the two vulpines, "What are you two talking about?"_

"_Go ahead Fox, show us," Krystal smirked. She tried to look smug. Her blush shined through her blue cheek fluff like magic lavender._

_Fox got up and tilted his neck down towards her. Falco gave him an odd look. Fox bent down on his knees, causing both Falco and Slippy to suddenly gape to the most extreme extent. Fox realigned his neck to look up at Krystal again. His hand shook as he reached into the pocket of his normal everyday ship wear and took out a small box. He opened it. "Krystal, will you marry me this summer?"_

_Krystal paused and thought for a second as she looked down at him. "I believe I can. I will then." She leaned in and kissed Fox on the mouth._

"_Well…that's really good guys. Good to hear it," Falco smiled and clapped to the best of his ability._

"_Y-yeah. We've been talking about it for a while actually. I tried my best to keep it a surprise. It almost worked."_

"_You two really are a good couple, but please tell me you are going to be cheap with this right?" Falco grimaced_

_ "It will be, to the best of our ability. I still care very much about our team," Fox addressed Falco in earnest._

_ "I trust you, buddy," Falco sighed._

_ Suddenly, Fox's cell comm rang. A distraught female voice echoed from it "Hello? This is Lucy. Peppy's daughter?" _

_Fox answered "Yes, what's wrong?"_

"_It turns out that Peppy didn't actually hurt his foot," Lucy said._

"_What?" Fox blurted in confusion._

"_He didn't want you to know this. He didn't want you to worry about him while you and your team were trying to find work. I, however, think you deserved to know He…"_

"_H-he what?" Fox started shaking. Fox's mind's terror leaked over into Krystal and made her feel the tension. Slippy just stared and was still confused._

_Lucy blurted out a long string of bad news "My father, Peppy O'hare has a very severe growth inside of his leg. It appears to be some sort of cancer, but the cells are so horribly deformed that they can't tell what kind it is. It's really bad. It's really bad I- jus cn I js'' she tripped up on her own words and eventually her speech was reduced to tear filled mumbling and jittering. "I gotta go, I'm so sorry! I gotta go!" She hung up._

_Fox's twitching grasp let go of the comm back onto the table. "Peppy has cancer."_

"_What?!" Slippy screeched._

_Krystal grabbed Fox much hard than before. "I'm so sorry, I can't express just how horrid this is. We're going to see peppy, and we're going to propose again on another day. Okay?" Krystal said gasping._

"_I need to go use the bathroom; I don't feel so well!" Fox yelled as he bent his fork and ran off._

"_Ah geez, this is awful! Fox wait!" Falco yelled as he ran after his friend._

_~x~_

Having had enough, Krystal turned over and pinned Fox down by his chest. Fox woke up screaming for his horrible flashback.

"Fox, let me read your thoughts," Krystal demanded.

"No…no, I can just talk…" Fox moaned. He gently took Krystal's hand off of his forehead.

"Okay, but I think I know what this is about, Fox."

"How…how long ago was our last mission?" Fox asked her in a weak voice.

"Oh, well… It was about four to five months ago. It didn't pay well," Krystal stated to the other vulpine's grimy nocturnal face.

Fox sat up and stared down at the floor. "It was that escort for that package to that private dwarf planet near meteo, right?" It was not the most glorious mission.

"Yes, to that eccentric squid man. I believe it was a priceless gilded door knob," Krystal recalled.

Fox chuckled for a brief moment then frowned again. "I…checked our account."

Krystal stared at him and frowned as well. "It's all gone isn't it?"

"We have one-hundred and twenty credits left," Fox coughed.

"I had no idea it was that dire!" Krystal exclaimed. "-and I call myself a physic…"

"I have no idea what your powers have to do with money, Krystal. Anyway, it's not even enough to get the g-diffusers on our arwings checked." He shook his head in disgust of his situation.

"Oh…" Krystal whispered to herself as she looked at the wall. "How did that call go yesterday? I know it's rude to listen to conversation in secret, but It sounded like you were looking into a mission offer."

"Yeah, I was. It was just something about exterminating dangerous wildlife on Fortuna. It paid well but unfortunately they got someone else to do it for free," Fox sighed.

"There has to be something else out there for you to do, Fox." Krystal lied to him and herself.

"I've looked at all of the paper, and all of the sites. There is nothing left. Lylat always gets really sleepy when there's peace, and this peace could last for the rest of our lives," Fox complained. "It's driving me insane!"

"We could always leave. Check out the Tyrva system maybe? Perhaps even New Lylat?" Krystal tried to encourage him.

"I've heard nothing of need from those places either," Fox pouted.

"Well, Tyrva is actually where Wolf went from what I heard," Krystal inquired.

Fox froze for a second not having heard the name of his old rival for months "Well, I haven't heard anything about him causing trouble. Maybe he's retired. How old is he now?"

"I believe Wolf O'Donnell is forty years old, Fox"

"I see," Fox replied in a low voice. This fact made Fox kind of sad for some reason. "Anyway, going on a mission now just wouldn't be the same, so much has gone wrong this year apart from the money problems."

"I know," Krystal put her hand up to his cheek.

Out of nowhere the bedroom light flashed on, burning the sensitive eyes of the semi-dormant vulpines.

"Gah!" Fox screamed. "Ah!" Krystal exclaimed more calmly.

Then the light just burned out and burst into plastic shards all over the bedroom floor.

"Gyaah!" Fox screeched. Krystal just looked at him this time, sensing an overreaction.

Footsteps could then be heard in the cold featureless hallway outside the warm carpeted bedroom. Slippy barged in.

Fox and Krystal both screeched at the top of their lungs.

"Calm down guys! It's only me! I heard the light go out and I'm here to fix it!" The little green Toad explained with enthusiasm. He accidentally shined his flashlight into Fox's eyes. He almost forgot that Slippy's room was right next door.

"Grrr, Slippy! At least knock man! We're in our underwear under here!" Fox barked as he squinted in anger at the toad. "-and get that flashlight out of my eyes! Don't you know how much that stings after being in the dark for hours? I'm about as sensitive as a vampire right now!"

"Fox," Krystal said as she put her paw over his eyes to calm him down. "He only wants to help. You should be thankful he chose to stick around."

"Fine, there might still be some up to date lightbulbs in the storage chamber. It's not like we were going to be able to sleep anyway," Fox sighed.

Slippy looked at the couple and took in their words. Slippy had been having a good night, including some rest, but now he felt bad. Fox deserved rest far more than he did. "Hey, I'm sorry I wasn't so courteous Fox. I know I can be annoying, and I know you're dealing with a lot right now. I wish I wasn't so good at being oblivious to it all the time. I miss Falco and Peppy too."  
Fox stumbled out of bed and onto his two feet. "I don't want to talk about either of those two right now. Just go do what you were going to go do. I'm going to go…take a shower, yeah." He walked past Slippy, leaving Krystal in bed by herself.

Krystal was torn, now that Fox was having his episode somewhere else, she could finally get some sleep. However, what kind of wife was she to leave him to suffer by himself. They only just got married last week. "I should go make sure he's okay," Krystal sighed as she abandoned her bed.

"Okay, I'll take care of the lightbulb." Slippy said with significantly less enthusiasm than before. He still felt guilty for barging in like that, or maybe he was just unhappy with how it felt something about Fox was changing.

Krystal walked past him the same as Fox did, leaving the toad to himself.

Fox entered the bathroom down the hallway, the one with the broken sink that they couldn't afford to get the parts to fix. He looked at the rusty mangled piping in despair. He sat down in the shower and proceeded to take off his bright red boxers off and throw them onto the broken sink. He covered his scalp in a whole bottle of blueberry shampoo. He closed his eyes as the light blue goo penetrated every fiber of his smelly and mangled red fox fur, he hadn't showered in three days. He turned on the water at its hottest setting. The hot clear water foamed up the shampoo amalgamate on his head and melted it into a soapy water that rushed over his whole body.

As he looked at a blue shampoo glob in his hand, he couldn't help but think of Falco. As the water dissolved it, he couldn't help but wonder where the bird was and what he was doing. He didn't blame Falco for breaking off from of the team. He had nothing left to give to him. Fox could hardly afford Slippy and his wife was there for free.

He then looked back out of the shower at the rusted broken pipes. They made him think of Peppy. Fox felt a deep sadness. At first Fox was happy for Peppy when he retired, but then he got sick. It was the similar to the thing that his wife had died from, some strange cancer-like disease starting in the leg. He had a cell comm conversation with him the other day but secretly Fox was waiting for the bad news that he was gone. Fox should have really gone and visited him, but he was afraid of what state he would be in. He couldn't help but remember how bad last time was.

_~x~_

_The hospital embraced all visitors with a cold and blinding shock. Fox and his friends walked into the room that they had been dreading. A dozen different monitors and mechanisms hooked up to their old friend's very flesh. Not even Slippy knew what most of this stuff was._

_A huge black demon-like mass had conquered Peppy's entire right shin, on top of that, a little black glob rested on his left hand. Huge purple veins pulsated and oozed on the dark shaved flesh. Most of Peppy's fluffy grey hair had fallen out, most likely from the strange blue and green liquids that were being injected into his right arm._

_Peppy looked over and saw the team and gasped. "Oh! Um, I wasn't expecting you guys." He acted as if he didn't have a giant cancerous parasite growing on him that they would had needed to know about._

"_Peppy…why didn't you want us to know?" Fox sniffled at him as he carried a bouquet of carnations in his hand._

"_It's just a little tumor, that's all. These guys are just going to give me some stuff and I'll be fine."_

"_You don't need to lie to us," Krystal told him. "We're adults, not even young adults at this point. We can cope with this, but until you stop denying the seriousness of this situation."_

_Fox stood behind Krystal liked a scared child. He couldn't stand to look directly at Peppy. It was too scary. He told Krystal that he wasn't going to cry but he was starting to get worse at keeping promises._

_Krystal looked over her shoulder. "Fox…" Fox was acting more like Krystal's son than her husband right now. However, she couldn't blame him. Krystal was never as close to Peppy as Fox._

"_It's…It'f…It'fokay." Fox sniffled. "Peppy you're right, thisf isn't anything to worry ab-bout." Krystal looked at Fox like he was crazy, and tragedy can make people crazy,_

_Fox swallowed a bolus of snot. "We're just here to visit. Let's talk, let's spend time together."_

_Slippy and Krystal just stared at Fox in sad disbelief. _

_Falco stood behind Fox and held his shoulder. To be honest Falco showed cracks as well. He kept rubbing his eye and taking breaks from looking at the situation. "I'm up for that," he mumbled._

"_That sounds nice, Fox. What do you want to talk about? It would really help make these treatments more bearable."_

"…_How…how about we talk about the good old days…the time you spend with dad."_

"_That sounds like a wonderful Idea, Fox." Peppy smiled._

_Fox smiled back and rubbed his eyes clean._

_Soon everybody was behind Fox, holding tightly onto something. They didn't move for hours that day. It was harrowing._

_~x~_

Fox looked back at himself, at his own raw body in the shower. He remembered last week's wedding and smiled a little. Fox couldn't wait until the good news from Krystal about his heir. Then he frowned again, there probably won't be anything left for the kit to be an heir to. Things were looking bad for the Great Fox and for Star Fox, mercenary work just didn't seem like it was much of a thing anymore. Corneria was becoming far more competent and powerful as of late and Venom was keeping to itself. Pirates were being crushed for the most part, and nothing was happening.

Fox tried to process it all into one thought. Falco was gone. Peppy was dying. Star Fox was going bankrupt. His kit's future was uncertain.

No. Fox was running out of friends. Fox's mentor and father figure was being killed off by worthless gunk like he was a rotting piece of meat. Fox was failing his father and his whole family's legacy by letting this team fade from existence. His kit was going to grow up to be a worthless nobody hick who will probably be unemployed.

The last of the shampoo drained away, and Fox turned off the water as his brain finished processing. "Ngyah! Damn it all to hell! It's all lost! It's all for nothing! Uwaaah!" Fox screeched and ranted. His voice echoed loud and clear throughout the bathroom.

Krystal knocked on the door "Fox, are you okay?" she said despite knowing he clearly wasn't.

Fox froze for a second as he heard the cerulean vixen's voice. He really didn't want to face anyone like this at the moment. He was being hysterical. However, they had only just gotten married recently and bottling up emotions this early on would set a bad precedent. Fox put his dirty red boxers back on and opened the door. He told the truth. "N…no," Fox gasped. "I am not okay at all."

Krystal hugged him without warning, causing him to tear up. "It's okay to cry Fox," Krystal said.

Fox put his head and snout up against Krystal's like two puzzle pieces. He sobbed.

Krystal shed tears silently while petting Fox's mohawk.

They stood there for a few minutes not saying anything.

"K-krystal," Fox sniffled.

"What is it?" she whispered in an attempt to be comforting.

"I'm going to have to sell it all… the Great Fox II, and the arwings," he moaned.

"That's okay. We don't need them, we'll survive. We just need to stay together; we can't lose anyone else."

Fox had remembered way back when, back in the good old days when Fox had just defeated Andross, that the CDF had offered him a job. He refused since he preferred to do things his own way and being in the military would make him have to take orders from others. However, he realized now that even if he wasn't in the CDF he'd never truly get to do things his own way.

"We can go to go back to Papetoon, where we got married. We can stay at my aunt and uncle's place until I got a new job," Fox suggested as he pulled himself back together.

"That sounds nice, but I can't imagine you doing anything other than mercenary work!" Krystal argued.

"I'm going to see if it's not too late to take that offer from the CDF back from when I defeated Andross. I could be a captain," Fox explained as he held Krystal in his arms when just a few minutes ago it was the other way around.

"-but what about being able to do things your own way? They'll crush you Fox!" Krystal was flabbergasted.

"I've already been crushed. I'll never be able to things my own way. If it's not the CDF, it's going to be poverty ordering me around. Do you understand?"

"I guess Fox, just promise to me that you'll be okay," Krystal pleaded. It was hard for her to look at Fox while he had that face. It was amazing how he was making these decisions despite how much they obviously hurt him.

"I'll try my best."

"And Fox, what about Slippy? He'll be out of a job once you close up shop!"

"I'll get him a job too, I promise. We won't lose any more friends," Fox reassured her. He was back to being confident, but he still had tear stains on his fur. He took a deep breath "Now, let's let Slippy fix that lightbulb and then we can go back to bed. We'll catch him up in the morning and see how he takes it." Fox gave Krystal a passionate kiss and then walked ahead of her back to the room.

"Fox, one last thing," Krystal bleated at him from behind.

"What is it?"

"This morning, I did that little test you bought. It came out positive."

Fox leaped back at her and hugged her. "That's great!" He then let go and thought for a second. "It's shame they won't be inheriting any of this though," he sighed.

"They'll be fine. All they will need is love. That and food, water, and shelter. The point is though is that they'll be fine," Krystal explained and gave Fox another kiss on his nose before she walked ahead of him to get back to bed.

Slippy approached from out of the room. "It's fixed, I can't believe that was the only bulb left."

"Thanks, we're lucky to have a free mechanic around. If it wasn't for you this place would had been toast weeks ago," Fox complemented him.

"Thanks, night Fox. Night, Krystal."

"Night" Fox and Krystal said to him in tandem. They walked walk into the room and got back into bed, finally ready to sleep properly.

Fox's free-spirited soul was broken and bleeding but having finally come to terms with the situation and tear off the Band-Aid helped him feel just a little better for the moment.

Then the light flickered back on and exploded into a million plastic shards.

"Well shit," Fox sighed.

-A/N; Made some edits suggested by Nail Strafer. It was his idea to use flashbacks.


	2. Chapter 2 A Family Favor

Solar and Lylat slowly danced around each other as they poked up from the organe-red papetoonian horizon. No animal sounds came from the charred sea of sand. The land sizzled, and the wind buzzed.

In the middle of the great desert that took up the entire field of one's vision, two small houses and a metal garage sat in the sand. The warm dust grinded against the ruffles of the garage's metallic shell. Some dust blew in through the crack left in the big sliding door. It would immediately loose it's steam and plop onto a small pile on the ground.

A fluffy fox with dark red fur worked on a piece of some contraption that nobody other than himself could identify as anything useful. He used a sander meant for wood on the metal, his sweaty overalls just barley protecting him from the sparks. The only adequate piece of equipment he wore was goggles. A big piece of spark tapped onto his beer gut and caused him to jump and drop the sander. "Good-… lord of-…burnt toast," he said patting down his clothes and shaking his hands in between sentence fragments. The sander whirled to a stop on the floor, ruining the pavement.

An irregularity made itself present in the desert morning hum. It sounded like a giant sigh was made into a material object which was falling out of the sky. A huge plop ended the interruption. A big billow of sand rushed in through the door crack. The fox in overalls rushed to unplug his sander, take off his goggles, turn off the lights, then close the sliding door with him on the outside. As he turned away from the garage and toward the big barren gap in between the buildings, he saw a big ship. _The Great Fox?_ he thought to himself.

The landing gear sighed and the exit port at the bottom hissed open, slamming onto the ground. None other than Fox McCloud walked out. Fox turned towards the other red fox. "Oh, good morning uncle Clytes," Fox said not expecting him to be up.

"Good mornin'," Clytes McCloud replied bewildered. "Did ya -uh, ferget something at the weddin' last week? We only cleaned the last of it up yesterdey."

Fox walked toward him. "What?! No! You think I need a reason to see my good old uncle Clytes?"

"Well, ya should be busy with that dangerous thing ya call a job there, n' the only time other than the weddin' that ya were here was when ya were huntin' down that venomian war criminal in one A.L.W.," Clytes bumbled.

Fox scratched his neck and looked to the side "Aw come on!". He forced a grin.

Krystal came out from behind Fox. "He's your family, and you don't have much of that left! You need to tell him the truth!" she snarled.

"Fine! We need to stay here for a while," Fox sighed.

"Oh?! Um, that's mighty bizarre but of course ya two can if ya want! Why do you need to though?"

"I-I…I'm changing jobs, and I'm selling the Great Fox II," Fox gulped.

"What?! That's absolutely awful!" Clytes exclaimed.

"Yeah, the CDF takes care of what little action is left nowadays. I haven't had a mission in months." Fox said as he squeezed Krystal's hand for comfort.

"Fox, let go that hurts!'' Krystal said as she yanked her hand out. She then patted his back instead.

"So…where are we going to stay?" Fox questioned his uncle.

"Well, the neighbors just got up n' moved out n' sold their house, we bought it to rent 'er out. You can stay there"

"Why would you do that?" Krystal said in great confusion, staring at the yokel and his weird decisions. "Nobody would ever come out here apart from us! It seems like a waste of credits"

"Well, they were only sellin' it fer 1,000 credits. I thought it was a bargain," he explained.

"Clytes! I don't have the money to rent anything out from you right now!" Fox barked.

Clytes put his hands up "Woah, woah, yer family. Y'all can stay fer free n' fer as long as y'all want!"

"Oh, and also, I have a friend with me too, Slippy. He was my mechanic. It's okay if he stays too right? Do I have to pay for him?" Fox remembered.

"Sure, No problem! Y'all might find that place a little more difficult fer three though."

"We'll make it work," Krystal assured Cyltes.

"Okay, well, thanks then," Fox stuttered.

"It's nothin'," Clytes insisted. Without warning, he then gave Fox a big hug.

Fox froze for a second. Clytes's oily clothes and and musky fur left slight stains on him, but he was so soft and warm. The welcome was awkward at first but now it was relieving. Not only did James McCloud's youngest brother look like James did, but he also smelled and felt like Peppy did. Fox's heart raced as this was becoming overwhelming. He hugged back with full force.

"Ungf! I had no idear ya had such a good grip Foxy!" Clytes said being muffled by Fox's chest fur.

Fox let go. "I'm sorry I didn't know what got into me," fox apologized.

"Naw, it's fine. Its fun getting' hugs from family other than the ones keepin' me captive here," Clytes laughed.

"Fox, keep it together!" Krystal whispered in his ear sensing his instability. She didn't want Fox crying again. It could really weird Clytes out.

Fox simply nodded back to her.

Clytes heard but misinterpreted what they whispered and gave Krystal a bear hug as well.

"Gentle! Gentle! I'm pregnant!" Krystal yipped.

Clytes let go "What?!" He squeed.

_Damnit, I meant to tell him that later,_ Krystal criticized herself subconsciously.

"I'm so happy fer y'all! See Foxy! It ain't all bad!"

"Thanks, Clytes," Fox nodded.

Clytes handed over the key to the annexed house. "Y'all go get settled in while Joanne makes dinner.''

Slippy came out from the Great Fox II. "Sorry I was in there so long guys, I had to fix something in the bathroom."

"Oh?! This here must be him now, right Foxy?" Clytes laughed.

"Yes," Fox blushed.

Clytes grabbed Slippy's hand firmly and shook it.

"Oh, wow, you must be the violinist from Fox's wedding," Slippy said shaking

"Fiddler," Clytes corrected him.

"You smell like motor oil more than I do," Slippy said.

"Slippy!" Fox nagged him

"It's fine, Fox. It's true. I have fur. Oil sticks to it better than toad skin," Clytes chuckled. "Well, I gotta get going now, maybe even work a little more on my projects in the garage."

"Projects? What kind of projects?" Slippy asked.

"It's hard to explain, but you can come look if you want. You seem like the type of person who would share this hobby," Clytes responded to Slippy.

"Sure!" Slippy said "We can go now if it's fine with you!"

"That sounds great!" Clytes walked away with Slippy back towards his shed.

"He seems to have gotten over the news pretty quick," Krystal told Fox.

"Oh, well I told him I'll make sure he's still a mechanic. I called the CDF before we came down to Papetoon, what they said sounds promising for both of us."

"It still won't be the same will it?" Krystal sighed

"Of course it won't, but we're doing what we have to. Let's make the best of it. Put on a smile for me please," Fox pleaded.

"If it's for you, I'm pretty sure I can."

"Thanks, Krystal. Anyway, looks like we have to carry our stuff and Slippy's stuff. Let's get to work."

-X-

The empty house sat in the sand. It mostly offered dark shades of brown apart from it's red-tiled roof. The wood had to had been brought in from somewhere else. It couldn't be Fortunian wood as that stuff was too expensive and Corneria didn't allow logging at all. Perhaps it was Iedenese pine from the Insular system, or maybe it was from somewhere cheap in New Lylat.

As Fox and Krystal walked up to the uninteresting abode, the hot elongated porch creaked under their shoes. A three-fanged demented wolf snake hurled itself out from under the porch and zoomed away. It buried its long-furred body into a sand dune.

"Gah!" Fox briefly called out in surprise. "Forgot how weird the fauna was on Papetoon," he told his wife.

"You mean that isn't a leftover experiment of Andross?" she joked.

"No. As much as he tried, he'd never be able to make anything as messed up as what lives on Papetoon," Fox chuckled. He put the key into the door, and it creaked open.

The inside air cooled them down, it almost made them cold. All the windows hid under long purple. No light shined.

Fox then turned on the light.

"It's a lot cleaner than I foresaw. In fact, it's kind of sparse in here," Krystal said as she looked around at the near empty entry room.

"Take of your boots," Fox insisted.

They peeled their boots off of their paws and placed them onto the cold hard dark brown wooden floor which shined like metal. They didn't have to worry about tracking in anything. Nothing on Papetoon was wet enough to stick to your clothes and follow you inside. Fox closed the door before anything blew in.

The weak orange light bulb released a gentle glow that kissed all the objects in the room. The entry room contained nothing but an empty chest and a chair. An open door led to the kitchen, which was almost as sparse. The single bedroom was the sparsest of all, only containing a single large bed. A single bathroom accompanied it.

"I'm going to go get our boxes," Fox sighed.

"No, please, allow me to help," Krystal argued.

"Okay," Fox agreed.

"I like your uncle. He seems nice enough. I don't sense anything bad from him," Krystal said. "He was great at our wedding by the way, I didn't know anyone in your family had a bone of musical talent."

Fox blushed. "Yeah, I tried to learn guitar from him when I was twelve. I never got far though. It always hurt my fingers."

Krystal laughed a little to keep Fox up. She knew he was in actuality, still very upset inside. They proceeded to collect their stuff from the ship together until dinner that night.

-X-

Joanne Joestar-McCloud, Fennec Fox wife of Clytes, proceeded to lay out dinner on the long plastic table in her dining room. She sat up six cheap seats for that table. The foldable table was adorned with boiled blue corn seasoned with pepper, salt, paprika, garlic, and sesame oil. Next to that was a pound of baby baked potatoes that had been cooked in tin foil with onions, olive oil, dill, parsley, and thyme. She also made cole slaw out of purple cabbage heart, carrot, and radish and mixed it with vinegar, lemon juice, lemon zest, dill, and diced onion. In the center of it all was a roasted desert pheasant that Clytes hunted himself, it was stuff near bursting with a savory stuffing.

She braced herself as she reached out to ring the dinner bell. The bell rang in her hand with its usual hideous clanging. Various vulpines came running down the stairs in an intimidating stampede. The older stronger ones always came down first so that there was no chance of them bumping into and hurting their younger siblings. Five kits in total lived in this house.; Davis, Joseph, Anjou, Jodie, Barth, and Olomew McCloud.

Joanne almost regretted having so many, but Clytes was so worried about passing on his name and she didn't want him to be disappointed.

The kits rushed into the room. The eldest towered tall over all the others and came to take the most.

"Yes! Roasted desert pheasant! I'm gonna murder that bird!" Davis bellowed while striding in and bending his chair as he plopped his rock-solid butt on it. He rudely grabbed its whole leg and ripped it off. He crunched it into his maw, sucking all the meat off loudly. "Gotta get protein to win the cup tomorrow for Dead Finch High!"

"Mom! I thought we were having lizard! This really irks me! Why must you always do this to me!" Anjou whined, overshadowed by his huge brother.

"Shut up and eat!" Davis barked back at the scrawny grade schooler with his big mouth full. The tan-colored red fox went back to destroying the pheasant.

"No, and I also see how you make our cole slaw vegan, thinking I wouldn't notice," Anjou sneered at his mother.

"It is? I just thought mayo was gross," Joanne told Anjou.

"I jUsT tHoUgHt tHaT iT wAs GrOsS," Anjou said hunched over.

"Well, just eat something and deal with it you little guacamole brain!" Joanne barked at Anjou.

"Fine," Anjou moaned and sat down, grabing a cob of corn with his paw. He flickered his big red ears in anger.

Another ambiguous vulpine hybrid, Joseph, sat down and grabbed a bunch of potatoes. He got his paw fur on them. He ate them like candies, flopping his tongue around them in an almost perverse manner. Joanne tried just to ignore it.

The two little twin kits Barth and Olomew tossed a single potato back and forth between each other. They screeched in joy that they could waste another feast on their dumb ideas.

Only Jodie sat and ate properly, as she took after her mother in ways more than just looks. Joanne and Jodie looked at each other and sighed.

Clytes was guiding his nephew, Fox, and his niece-in-law, Krystal, to the table. Slippy followed from behind. "I hope y'all enjoy the food, she really worked hard on it."

Joanne looked at Clytes and shook her head horizontally through the door with a concerned look on her face. "Eat at the bar, eat at the bar," she whispered over and over.

"Actually, let's eat at the bar, the table looks full," Clytes said as he manually turned the two around with his paws.

"Full? Oh yeah you have kits, don't you?" Krystal said.

"Yes, I do," He replied.

"Yes, he does," Fox replied at the same time.

"Yeah," Slippy added.

"How old are you? I thought that James's brother would be too old to have kits still living with them," Krystal asked.

"Krystal?!" Fox nagged her.

"I'm forty-two, my brother was ten years older than me. Joanne is thirty-nine."

"Thanks," Krystal replied.

"Still Krystal you don't ask that!" Fox whined.

''Calm down," she told him.

The kitchen bar was much nicer looking than the family table. It had room for up to five people, but Joanne probably wouldn't join them. She seemed pretty busy mediating her kits.

"Let me pour y'all some drinks and get y'all some food, y'all don't want to interfere with that mess in there," Clytes told them.

"Thanks, really enjoyed your inventions by the way. I see what you mean about not being able to explain them!" Slippy shouted at Clytes with enthusiasm.

"Thanks a bunch, I'll be right back." Clytes ran to the dining room

Fox, Slippy, and Krystal sat in silence at the bar. They were all very tired at this point, but also very hungry.

Fox felt his stomach growl and put his paw onto it. "I'm glad that we finally get to eat after skipping lunch."

"The meals on ship were getting stale and bland," Krystal agreed.

"I think the powdered potatoes gave me ringworm," Slippy said pointing to a weird circle on his arm.

"Well don't show it to us! Put your sleeve back down! Ringworm is contagious!" Fox shouted.

"Sorry," Slippy apologized with a sigh.

"It smells so nice in here," Krystal said "Anyway, I think that your uncle could tell you where you can sell your stuff."

"I guess that would make sense, I'll ask him,'' Fox nodded back.

Clytes rushed back with plates for all four of them. The hot homecooked made them feel almost high. "Look at yer faces, I'm guessing y'all've been stuck with all that fake space food stuff for quite some time ain't y'all?"

"Yes!" Fox yelled as he clamped down on the desert pheasant like a monster. It was practically bone in seconds.

After watching Fox snap, Slippy and Krystal soon resorted to doing the same. Their plates were all empty within five minutes. Clytes had only just started finishing his pheasant with a fork and knife by that point.

"Uh…y'all need drinks? We got sweet tea," Clytes asked.

"Yes!" They all yelled.

"Okay, okay!" He frantically agreed back at them as he retrieved sweet tea for them all.

Fox gulped down his drink in seconds. "Now, what was I going to ask you first? Oh yes, would you happen to know where a guy could go sell his ships? I'm going to sell all but one arwing. I still need one to leave the planet when I get the new job you know?"

"Well, y'all can go to his place over in the town of Dead Finch about ninety miles west of here. That place is all about pawnin', I like to fly over there for drinks sometimes," Clytes told him as he sipped on his tea.

"You drink and fly?!" Fox exclaimed.

"What!? No, I uh- That's besides the point," Clytes yipped defensively back at his nephew. "The point is that I know where y'all can get a decent price on yer stuff there. Y'all need to be sure to go to 'Crafts to Credit' run by Mr. Miller, and not 'Credit Craft' run by Mr. Steve. Crafts to Credit is the fairest pawning place in town, Credit Craft is a knockoff."

"Do you sell stuff often there?" Fox asked him in intrigue.

"No, I mostly buy things from there, for my projects."

"I wish I had the funds to buy from there," Slippy pouted.

"We all wish we had funds period, be more mature Slippy," Krystal scolded the toad. She made Slippy look down in shame.

"Well, I have a might big pile o' stuff. You can borrow from it as much as you want whenever yer here Slip," Clytes comforted Slippy and patted him on the shoulder.

"Well, we might as well go there tonight after dinner and see if we can make any progress," Fox suggested using his own logic. He got up

"Wait! There's more y'all should know!"

"Oh, sorry," Fox said before sitting back down.

"Dead Finch is a bit shady, 'specially at night. Enforcement of the law had always been weak on Papetoon. Just thirteen short years ago, there was another town to the east of here called Ruvac. There was a gunfight that killed everyone there n' nobody knew anythin' had happened 'til visitors arrived weeks later. Admittedly though, Dead Finch is a much larger settlement than Ruvac was, but it's still full of criminals who want to corrupt your deals or take ya out. Just visit the pawnshop and nowhere else, ya hear? In fact, it's best to wait 'till mornin'!"

Fox laid his ears back in intimidation, he had forgotten how iffy this planet was. Even when he lived on it as a child, he never really left his house. This news shocked even Krystal, despite her mind powers. Slippy felt the vibe as well, but he was known to be easily scared for quite some time.

"Uncle, you're telling me you go to this place on a regular basis and it isn't safe?" Fox gulped with a turn of his head.

Clytes dismissed this, saying "Fox, that's different. I've dealt with this my whole darn life, I'm fine.''

"I'm sorry, I just don't like it. James knew a ton about mercenaryism, and he still eventually got killed from it." Fox barked.

"He trusted a pig, I only trust my family," Clytes tried to explain to Fox.

"Just continue to at least be careful then okay?" Fox demanded.

"I will, I will," Clytes insisted back. He was somewhat irritated, but he knew Fox was probably just being protective of family.

Krystal gazed at Fox and his uncle in silence as they conversed. She didn't know what to say. Fox clearly was fearing loss. Maybe he thought that his uncle could replace Peppy, and that Peppy had been replacing his father. While she knew she could help Fox somehow, it looked as if she alone was not enough to keep him afloat mentally. This saddened her, but she stayed quiet.

"Anyway, I guess we will wait until morning. So long as you don't go tonight," Fox decided.

"That's fine, I wasn't plannin' on goin' tonight. However, I'd prefer that so long as you stay here you don't try n' control me. It's not that I don't appreciate your carin' fer me, really. It's just you can't do that."

Fox got up from his chair and yawned. "Understood, thank Mrs. McCloud for the meal then. I need to go to bed."

"I guess I should go to bed too, thanks for everything," Krystal added.

"It's nothin,'" Clytes insisted.

"Night," Slippy said.

"Night."


	3. Chapter 3 Material Parting

_Just about a month ago Fox was sitting in his chair_ _on the Great Fox II, fighting the numbers. He would play around with plans and details of how to approach the financial situation for about an hour at a time. In between sessions of this futile venture, he would make about twelve or so calls to various ''clients''. Nothing was ever offered, and the conversation would end in anger._

_ The caller hung up._

_ "Fu- good luck doing that yourself dingus!" Fox stuttered to himself. He slammed the outdated commline down onto the desk, breaking it. "No!"_

_ Slow scratchy steps sounded into the room. "Fox?" Falco said._

_ Fox turned his head "O-oh, hi Falco, you're back from that errand," Fox stuttered._

_ "Yes, I am," Falco sighed._

_ Fox looked up at Falco from his chair with a fake smile._

_ Falco just stood their taking in Fox's face for a minute or two. Awkwardness increased._

_ Fox sweated "Could…I help you with something buddy?"_

_ "I guess I should tell you something," Falco said, frowning the best one can with a beak._

_ "Oh."_

_ "This isn't working Fox. It's not enough," Falco told him._

_ "W-what? What isn't working? What do we need more of?"_

_ "My paycheck, Fox. The cuts are too much. I'm sorry but I can't afford to stay much longer." Falco was disappointed to say this, but he hid his sadness behind a poker face so that he could cope._

_ "…I thought you'd at least stay for the wedding," Fox whimpered, his chest freezing up._

_ The blue pheasant responded with odd shrug-like gestures in an attempt to calm Fox down. "I can still come and not be part of the team, right?" Falco chuckled nervously._

_ "Yes, of course. I just…"_

_ "I'm sorry," Falco sighed._

_ "I understand, I'm sorry too."_

_ The two stood in the bridge room looking down at the metal ground._

_ "You have my number Fox; I'm going to be away from Lylat for a while. I promise you I'll be okay. You just stay here and try to keep yourself together."_

_ "I will," Fox said. The vulpine then got up from his seat and gave the bird an unexpected brotherly hug._

_ Falco was surprised by this contact, but he accepted it none the less. _

_After about ten seconds Fox let go. "Goodbye," Fox said._

"_See you later Foxy," Falco nodded._

_~X~_

A ray of blue and red light mixed together from the two suns shined in through a slit between the curtains. It missed Fox's eyes and instead brushed up against his chest peeking out from under the sheets. He would continue to sleep if it wasn't for the interference of a certain Cerinian.

Krystal placed her paws onto his cheeks. "Wake up, your family made breakfast," She yipped at him.

Fox tossed over in the dull dusty brown bead and gekkered half asleep. "Please no, leave me in my den Krysty. Leave me alone Kryst Kryst," he moaned and whimpered.

"Don't be so ungrateful, they worked so hard! Wake up or their kits will eat it all!"

Fox covered up his ears and raised his gekkering. "Stop!"

"Why don't you want to get up?" Krystal sighed.

Fox opened his eyes and stopped his gekkering. "I don't like what we have to do today."

"Fox, I'll see you through it. Your uncle will be there too. We're going to do what we have to do. You'll be fine in the end."

Fox turned back to her and looked into her eyes. "I know, I know," he puffed. Fox grabbed her hand. Krystal pulled him up out of his slumber, the covers falling and revealing his thin wispy boxers. The fluttered in the draft displaying the Star Fox logo. "I need new boxers, maybe normal hearts."

"We can get more clothes at Dead Finch after we sell what we need to sell," she informed him.

They walked into the bathroom to change into their day clothes. Slippy was sleeping in the tub with a blanket, hopefully he'd stay asleep long enough to not seen them in undergarments.

Fox reached into his suitcase on the floor and pulled out a plain white t-shirt with a small yellow stain near the collar. He paired it with a dark pair of purplish jeans with a tear in the denim around his knee. A brown flannel button-up fluttered off of the vulpine's hands and over the shirt. To top off the fashion middle finger, he wore socks and sandals.

Krystal stared over at Fox in intrigue as she dressed herself. She decided to put on a slim floral full body dress with some pink tennis shoes and some shades.

Neither of the vulpines showered that morning. They just didn't feel like it. They were going to Dead Finch after all, so it didn't matter.

Slippy woke up to the smell of unbathed Fox, which was almost half as bad of the smell of ferret musk. "Gah, geez! It's stuffy in here! I'll get out! Please shower!"

"Slippy, we're going to a pawn shop in a dirty town after breakfast. We're just trying to blend in," Fox explained.

"Gross, but okay. I'm going to have to shower though. My skin is drying out and I'm starting to have trouble breathing. If I don't get wet soon this planet will literally kill me."

"Go ahead then, we're going to go eat," Fox grumbled.

The two vulpines stumbled out of the bathroom together, slamming the door behind them.

-X-

Joanne Joestar-McCloud had once again worked from early in the morning to set up a good breakfast. On the table before her laid buttermilk pancakes the size of large dinner plates stacked about a baker's dozen tall plus another five. They were aside a large stick of butter and a shaker of cinnamon. On the end of the table was basically a vat of possibly illegal bacon dripping copious amounts of molten animal fats. In between the two heart-clogging displays was a bowl of boiled eggs drowned in a desert of salt and pepper. Joanne couldn't eat any of it, she stuck to here small bowl of oatmeal over on the counter. She still sighed.

Soon, the six kits erupted from the upstairs door again. The silent dead and pretty room was dragged into loud bioactive and disorganized chaos.

Fox and Krystal ambled into the dining area.

Fox gazed at the confusion "Oh wow, look at all this- "

"Hey! It'sh cfousin pFox-Fox!" Davis interrupted; his mouth full of pig meat. He dropped his utensils and ran up to him.

"Oh, hey! Uh- "

Davis sucker-punched Fox in the gut with a devilish smile.

"Gfpah!" Fox gasped "Oh…I re- refmembher fyou now".

"What's wrong with you! You vile musclebound hooligan adolescent!" Krystal screeched at the fennec-eared red fox.

"Sheesh, Foxxo's lady is a real stick in the mud," Davis bellowed back towards the table.

"Respect our guests Davis! You're sixteen years old, stop acting like you're twelve!"

"Guests? I thought they were just squatting in that lame sad shack dad bought," added lame little Anjou who actually was twelve.

"What the actual f- "Krystal gasped as she was stopped by Fox.

"Krystal, Krystal, they're just playing. Chill."

Jodie McCloud tugged at Krystal's dress, surprising her. "It's okay madam, my brothers are awful gentlemen."

"Except for me, right?" Interrupted Joseph.

"Sure, whatever," The little sandy fennec girl told the red-fox-colored fennecoid.

"Anyway, I suggest you two just grab some food then eat at the bar. It's not worth it to sit here."

"She's right Krystal," Fox sighed.

"I'll get you the food, you just go sit down," mother Joanne insisted.

The two sat down at the bar where they sat yesterday. The copper colored counter was still clean and cool.

"Where's your uncle?" Krystal asked Fox.

Clytes suddenly appeared behind them. "Mornin'!"

"Gah! Why couldn't I sense him coming ?!" Krystal yelped.

"I don't know what yer talkin' about, but I'm all decked out fer town! Look!" Clytes was wearing brown to black leather head to toe, with something hard hidden on his torso. Onyx colored googles hugged tightly onto his face and his dark red fur looked like it had some ash or something burnt onto it. He had an old slug shot gun holder on his belt as well, and It even had a gun in it.

"You…look like you're from an old apocalypse movie," Krystal commented.

"So does Dead Finch if I remember correctly," Fox informed the azure vixen.

"Actually, the town looks more like an ole western movie," Clytes corrected him. "Are y'all sure yer suited up fer this?"

"I'll get my wife and I blasters from the ship, and that should be enough in my opinion," Fox nodded.

"If ya say so," Clytes fox-chirped back at him.

"I'm going to try to pawn off everything but one arwing. One can only carry two people, so I need you to drive Slippy back in your pickup."

"Sure thing Foxxo, where is that frog though?"

"He's taking a shower to save his life," Krystal informed him. "I'm going to bring extra bottled water for him today.''

"He shouldn't need too much if he stays in vehicles," Fox reassured.

"That's good, and don't most Papetoonian vehicles come with moisture systems?"

"That's right blueberry!" Clytes smiled. "Proud invention of our planet."

"Don't call me that please," she scorned at the redneck.

"Sorry."

"Wait a minute," Krystal said in realization looking at Fox. "If we can only carry two people in that arwing after the pawning, how will you take me with you to your new job?"

Fox froze in horror as the blue vixen gaze him a face of utter disappointment. He knew that she saw what he was planning to do and that she hated it. He shook in front of the two. "Oh, I see, that's an issue, or at least it would be, if… if I- "

"-If you what?" Krystal barked.

"It would be a problem if you were coming with me, but I'm afraid that there wasn't a position for you I'm sorry!" He shrieked in one breath.

"You couldn't find me a position? What do you expect me to do then? Stay here?"

Clytes darted his head in between the two, not being able to say anything to help.

"Krystal, you're going to be pregnant anyway. I want you to stay here and take it easy,'' Fox squeaked.

"I guess I get it. I know you aren't spiting me," Krystal sighed. "I still won't like it."

"You said we were going to do whatever we had to do and that it was going to be okay in the end. I trusted you when you said that. Can't you trust me back," Fox begged back at her scrunching up his face.

"I did say that. I do trust you. I'll be fine, sorry." Krystal knew that Fox wasn't just protecting her from fighting like normal. This was a far more practical situation; she just straight up couldn't do anything right now. Fox was being perfectly reasonable with this. It was still unfortunate.

. Joanne walked over with three heaping plates of continental delight. "Here it is."

"Thanks," Fox groaned.

"No prob, hon," she said and put down the plates.

"Let's eat up, we need it," Clytes suggested. "I'm sorry things are goin' rough"

"Everything will be fine, uncle," Fox insisted as he put his fork into the bacon.

They ate breakfast without further conversation.

Krystal avoided making eye contact with anyone for the moment. She was a little mad. She wanted to pass on going and have a breather to take in everything, but she said she'd be there for Fox when he went there. She got up after her meal was only half eaten. "I need to spend some time in the lady's room," she sighed.

"Take your time," Fox frowned. He knew he hurt her.

-X-

The morning gave way to the stronger light of the first high noon over the town of Dead Finch. Papetoon, like all other planets in Lylat, had two noons due to having two suns. However, on Papetoon, the effects of these times were far more pronounced as the heat roasted the hides of Papetoon. Dead Finch, however, was built inside a deep crater to protect its residents from the heat.

The town was made up of one main road connected to seven small roads all lined with similar looking limestone buildings. There was little to no distinction between which were houses and which were business apart from the big tacky signs attached to the facades of the commercial buildings.

Various groups desert animals walked around the edges of the poorly kempt roadways, such as coyotes, fennec foxes, and roadrunners. There were also some Venomians, Cornerians, and even a single extra-stellar being. All together Dead Finch harbored around one thousand residents. Various cruddy hover vehicles brushed around main street.

At the west lip of the crater, where the road lowered down into the town, no shrubs or bushes obstructed the path of landing ships. This was the perfect place for touchdown.

A huge puff a dust poofed into existence as a giant hunk of metal plopped down from the sky and impacted the ground. The Great Fox II had touched down for the last time under Fox's command.

As the deck lowered, the trio sank their shoes into the crimson sand beneath them. The dust was still floating and they all couldn't help but cough. This was especially irritating for Slippy who was trying to eat some bacon leftover from the breakfast he missed.

"Gnaf- ack! Darn! I almost choked! The sand here is worse than on any other planet! It's like it's made of glass particles!" The Toad hacked.

Krystal groaned "That's…because glass is made from sand…" Krystal said unamused.

"Oh…yeah" The Toad frowned. "Sorry if I'm not being sensitive."

Fox eyed his watch "It's fine, Slippy. Anyway… Clytes should be here any minute now." He sat down on the metal and looked up at the sky. His paws rubbed against the warm, hard, crusty metallic floor.

Slippy watched the red-orange paw move. "Have you said your goodbyes to everything, Fox?" he squeaked.

"No, I've been procrastinating. I- I guess I could do it now," The sad todd mumbled, moving his right paw up to hold his temple. "The arwings are more or less the same, so since we're keeping one, I'm fine with not looking at those. I'll just look around the Great Fox II one last time. You removed your scanner from your arwing right?"

"Yes, Fox."

"Alright," Krystal said putting her paw on Fox's shoulder. "Get yourself back up."

The inside of the ship contained the same features as it did three months prior, apart from some new stains and scratches. More of the lights no longer worked. The sandy desert winds made a soft humming noise that could be heard from the inside as they entered.

With his wife and friend behind him, he toured himself around the rooms he had seen so many times. The entry room embraced them with a cool shade from the harsh Papetoonian sun. It was as if it was giving them all a final gift. The dim blue lights buzzed as they continued on to the bridge/cockpit area that so many missions were seen over in.

The lights at the bridge were all off so all the lighting came in from the suns through the windows. All that remained in this room were buttons on consuls, cracked screens, and warm black turning seats that still had the imprints of people on them.

Fox walked up to his trusty captain's chair. He squished his cheeks back onto the seat for the millionth time. The cheap fake leather greeted him like an old friend. He couldn't help but feel something catch in his throat a little.

Krystal looked at him as he closed his eyes. She cradled her forehead in discomfort as the thoughts from Fox's mind seeped into her. _Will I ever have anything like this again? How would Peppy feel about this, or Father? How do I tell Falco if I see him? I wish I could sit in this chair forever._

"W-well…Fox, where to next?" Krystal stuttered as she fluttered her eyes.

"…The hangar."

"Yes." Krystal said.

The hallway to the hangar seemed longer than ever. It felt like they had been following Fox for several minutes as he dragged his feet. However, at this moment, this hallway could never be long enough.

None of them could see in the hangar, none of the lighting worked there anymore. The last two bulbs in here broke last night. The ship pawner wouldn't like that.

"We can't see here Fox," Slippy whined.

Fox didn't reply, instead he stumbled through the dark. He crawled on the floor. He knew the room very well and could had just walked. Despite that, Fox embraced the floor. He rubbed his loose overshirt over the still smooth flooring of this holy room. As his snout hit the old space portal, he crawled himself back up using the wall and pressed the button.

With a solid metallic click that echoed through the whole hangar, the wall lifted and let the arid sunrays seep in. All wave of light illuminated the arwings from bottom to top along with the rest of the gray room.

Fox froze and looked around in a panoramic. The room he had seen so many times and was so used to that he ignored all of its details was suddenly new. It shocked him. The room didn't actually have that many specific attributes, but he noticed that now. It never needed more than what it took to hold these ships. What really mattered about the hangar was that it enabled him and his friends. This is where they all came together, it was why they mattered to each other.

He thought again, about his father. His father used the original Great Fox, which Fox used to have. He no longer wished that he still had that original, the one where he had formed half of his memories of mercenary hood. This would all be so much worse if he was selling that one. Still, despite being a bad replacement that never even looked like the original, the Great Fox II still made Fox feel something and he didn't know why. Peppy never even worked much here, although he did visit. It had to had been Falco in his head. He still remembers celebrating his proposal to Krystal with him here. Even though Fox did not drink like the others, they still all figured out ways to have the best possible time thanks to him.

Fox briefly looked at his cell comm. Falco still never replied to his latest text. It said "How are you doing?" That's it. The cell comm shook. The cell comm did not ring however, Fox did. He put it back in his pocket.

Krystal ran over, "Fox!"

"Oh god…oh fucking god… it's coming, I can't contain it!"

"Fox!" Krystal cried. "Fox!" Slippy yelled.

Fox collapsed onto the ground and started gasped for air. "Aaaaah!" he screeched at the top of his lungs.

The blue vixen and green toad latched onto his arms and held him up.

Krystal limped onto him and started crying as he sobbed. "Fox! Fox! Y-y-we can can get this! We can he through t-this!" She wailed.

Slippy didn't cry, instead he held Fox in utter horror. It was almost disgusting to him to see someone he saw in such high regard be demolished phycological. It couldn't be happening. He could feel nothing but shock and terror for Fox.

The dysphoria was no applying its full weight too all of them. They were too distracted to hear anything going on outside. They did not hear the screeching of breaks of the rusty hover truck.

A leather glove grasped the ledge of the hangar. The dark red rural fox uncle pulled himself up. He went unnoticed.

"Fox?" he called.

Fox sniffled and turned around. His facial fur was stained by biological saltwater. "No! Uncle! I don't want you to see me like this," he growled underneath his wife and friend.

Despite this request, Clytes dropped his toolbox and scurried towards his nephew. "Fox…"

Krystal snorted and dried her face with her paws. "L-listen."

"Fox, yer father wouldn't be ashamed of you. He would be proud fer what you've already achieved," He whispered, resting his finger underneath the other man's muzzle.

"How would you know!" Fox barked.

"Fox, he was my brother," Clytes said.

Fox decreased his sobbing in slight embarrassment "Oh… yeah,"

"I was ready to drive y'all to the place I mentioned, but I think we should sit here and all breath fer a moment," he said trying to be as helpful as he could. "I knew this was goin' to be hard, but I should had known it would be this hard."

"Itf hard," Fox sniffled.

Clytes bent down and hugged him like everyone else. They continued for minutes on end.

"Fox…please don't leave me…" Krystal whimpered.

"I'm won'f, i-itf not like that," he whined.

"It will only be a temporary arrangement, he'll be able to fit ya back n' the picture as soon as possible," Clytes reassured his niece-in-law, holding her paw. "N' I'm certain he will be there for yer kits when they come."

"Yes" Fox said. His voice was weak, but his grip on Krystal was strong. "I love you all."


	4. Chapter 4 Adjustment and Introduction

It had been about a week. Nocturnal shade fell once again on the dull featureless desert plains of the McCloud household. Fox opened the old door. It moaned a wooden cry of anxiety as it let the cool night air burst into the front room of the family rental. Amber dust danced in around Fox's iron boots. He hadn't worn his piloting gear for a while now. It felt a little scratchy and neglected.

Fox sighed as he looked up at the big menacing purple moon that his desolate home world was graced with. It almost looked like it's gashes and craters formed the face of some old creature frowning down at the porch.

On the horizon on which the violet orb would set upon was the one arwing that Fox didn't sell. No logo remained on it, because he had repainted it to look like a generic space vehicle. The steel craft stared at Fox despite not having eyes. Fox knew it was disappointed with the route he had taken. Was this the easy route? It felt like the hardest route possible to Fox.

_Daybreak is in just an hour. If only I could stay for it. Cornerian Standard time is a cruel mistress to off planet workers, _the sad todd complained to himself in his mind. He looked at his watch. He listened to the eerie hymn of the wasteland as he watched the colon on his cell comm's clock blink over and over. Like a metronome, or a cursor on a word document, its monotonous nature made him desire to continue to sleep. Of course, he couldn't though.

A pattern of oily steps approached the vulpine male from behind.

"Good…morning?" Slippy mumbled. It still looked like night. "Have you said goodbye to Krystal?"

Fox didn't directly look at Slippy. Still looking at his ship he said "No…she's asleep. I will of course. Sorry."

Slippy looked up at Fox, who was mostly in darkness. Fox could not be read in blackness, "Y-you okay?"

"I'm stable," Fox said. He then turned around and walked inside. Slippy waited on the porch.

Krystal was tangled up in the bed's covers. She reeked of sleep and fake apathy. Her eyes appeared as if they were glued shut, and her fur was unkempt. Ever so slightly, her feet looked swollen. Soon it would be clearer that she was pregnant. Even if she had accepted what was going on, she did not look like she had been sleepy very happily. At least the mauve window light made her body shine like tanzanite.

Fox walked into the bedroom as a silhouette of himself. However, once he walked into the glow that illuminated the vixen, his features showed. His fat black lips were stuck in a crooked frown. Lines of fur under his green eyes were stained a rusty brown with dried eye mucus. His white natural mohawk looked overgrown like a misplaced shrub, and his cheek fur look corrupted and dark.

The afflicted fox man grasped his scratched-up glove onto the cerinian's azure shoulder which felt tender yet hard. Krystal jolted awake.

"Fox!" she gasped.

"Good morning," Fox uttered.

"Good…early morning. It's five a.m., you really have to go this soon?"  
"Yes, Krystal. I think I told you this. I apologize if I didn't."  
"It's fine…so, I guess you're saying goodbye now?" Krystal sighed.

Fox was plain in his response; he was too exhausted to make another big deal "Yes."

Krystal played along with Fox's mood and decided she needed to be short and sweet with this, even if it still hurt a little. "Well, good luck. I love you."

Fox looked down into her big gleaming sapphire eyes. One could see an entire ocean in there. He took a deep breath. "I love you too. I'm sure everything will go swimmingly with the luck you just gave me." He sat down next to her and held her body, draped only in underwear and bed sheets. Fox stopped frowning for about a minute as they just sat. Fox was sure to pet and rub every part of Krystal appropriate for the moment. He closed his eyes as he reanalyzed her whole coat. Even when matted, it was still nice.

Krystal scanned up and down to get a good look at the old uniform she hadn't seen for a week. She flapped around all of its pockets and buttons, coveted its spandex parts. She sighed, moving her right paw up to the todd's poor cheek "It will all go well. I'll text you every night and call sometimes. Even if we don't do that, I'll still know whatever you're thinking."

"Yeah, but I want to know what you're thinking too. I'll call tonight," Fox nodded as he smirked for a quick second, even so he frowned as soon as Krystal could no longer see his face. He walked back into the shadows of the room. The shut of the door sounding off, then the front door.

Krystal ambled to the window as she looked off to the one remaining arwing. A little green toad, who was obviously Slippy, already sat in the back. The hatch was open, and everything seemed to be packed. She could see Fox sulk all the way to his ship. He looked back before getting in. She waved, but she knew Fox couldn't see her.

He climbed in. The hatch closed with a faint popping noise. The engine started, and with roar muffled by the house, it took off.

-X-

Three weeks later…

An impressive, large, gray and green fighter carrier rested in orbit around the semi-tainted jungle gem of Fortuna. It glowed under starlight like a wet stone. An earthling would had probably thought to themselves that it looked like a heavily armored and heavily armed aircraft carrier in space. In honor of the former mothership of the war hero and former mercenary who volunteered to oversee this facility, it was dubbed "The Greater Fox". This name was even engraved on its right side in bold red lettering.

In a pitch-black room on the very top of the bridge slept Cpt. Fox McCloud, who was said mercenary. Tangled up in the covers of his dinky little space bed, he was still wearing his grayish-green uniform from the previous simulated space ''day''. He refrained from taking it off the night prior in order to make his morning routine faster, it wasn't like he liked the suit. He always thought these dumb things made people look like cartoon villains.

The musky red fox was soon forcibly awakened by his cellcomm's alarm, his former favorite song. "F-" the device sang for a fraction of a second before Fox deactivated. He clapped and the bright blue illumination overhead turned on. His eyes clenched as it stung for a second.

The vulpine crawled off of his little two-dimensional den of linen. His bones crackled as he stood up and gave a big fat yawn. Walking like a zombie over to the dull dresser on the other end of the room, he pulled out a can of Dio Brand Deodorant and released a torrent of chemicals upon his woolen clothing until it looked wet.

"Gurah…" he moaned to himself. He stumbled over to the wooden door of his personal bathroom. He opened it so hard that it almost came down. After taking a concentrated and frustrated morning urine break, he looked into the mirror at his tired and numb face.

"Breath, breath. You're having fun Fox. This is a fun and great job," he exaggerated to himself in a tired droning voice. "Everyone out there loves me. For whatever reason, they're all looking up to me." He forced a smile while looking at his bent whiskers. "Sheesh, I need to shower tonight. I'm thirty-two, but I look forty-nine." He sighed. "Whatever."

After consulting his reflection, he turned around and left his pathetic dorm. Right outside his sleeping space was his much more elegant and spacious office room. Ruby, emerald, and sapphire colored lights blinked their colors on the sheen of the expensive black government console. The desk itself was just boring imitation mahogany with an antiquated computer monitor resting upon it. It was attached to an ambiguous PC module. A spiral staircase sat in the corner of the room, acting as a shortcut to the bridge. A glass elevator laid in front of the desk and across the room from the big window towards space. Fortuna chilled in view.

The grumbling fox placed his cell comm in his pocket and stomped over to the coffee machine next to his computer desk. He popped open the top of the red piece of junk, a device unchanged for decades. The grounds from the previous day had been degraded into a film of odorless sludge, this filter had to be removed. He filled the new fresh paper filter with aromatic fresh coffee, which was lighter in color with a more reddish tint of brown. He filled the water tank, closed the top, and pressed the button to start making the medicine for his morning hatred disease. It started its daily hot gurgling.

Fox plopped his posterior into his swivel chair and booted up the mediocre piece of software. He was just going to check his mail and schedule. The computer was the worst part of the job. He felt like he was going to get fat and useless from it even if he just sat once a day. However, he was so tired and bleh that he couldn't stand up for this task either.

As he waited for his drink to be ready and his device to finish turning on, he licked wounds on the inside of his mouth that he got from eating tortilla chips while watching daytime television the other day. Today was going to be his first day of actually doing much of anything related to being any sort of special military space person.

"Well, it's Thursday. I should be getting those recruits now, twenty or thirty of them I believe. I can't believe I'm baby-sitting recent flight school graduates," he sighed as he had been in a pessimistic streak lately due to recent events.

As he moved his cursor onto the ugly mailbox icon on his bright blue eye-bleeding screen, he was suddenly interrupted by a large hologram in between him and the screen.

"Good morning Fox!" a floppy young-looking version of general pepper blurted.

"Gah!" Fox yelped as he pried his paws away from the desk. He was lucky the coffee still wasn't ready. "P-pepper? Y-you look different."

"That's… kind of because I'm not Pepper, sir. Well I am, but I'm General Pepper the Second. Your Pepper was, I mean is my father," Pepper Jr. bumbled and stumbled upon what he tried to say.

"So…you are a general though? What happened to Senior?" Fox twitched, tired of all the changes he was being bombarded with.

"He retired. Left for the insular system last Cornerian night. He should be on Ieden now. He always wanted to tour the Europan sector. Lots of wars were fought there ages ago, so it has plenty of historical sites."

"Wait," Fox interrupted Junior. "You inherited your father position?"

"Pretty much!"

"I don't know, it still seems kind of corrupt to me," Fox murmured.

"It's the decision my father made, and he had the power to do it. That's all I can say."

Fox stared in discomfort. "Why are you calling anyway?"

"I was just reminding you that the Greater Fox is finally scheduled to begin its functions today. Fresh pilots are arriving, and you can expect more staff as we-."

"I already have that typed up on my computer, sir," Fox cut him off.

"Oh…I think you'll come to respect me eventually. I understand you haven't been in the best emotional state lately- "

"How do you know that!? Who are you to judge!?" Fox took offense.

"It's just I've heard how you refused the first time we offered you this position. You're only here because you ran out of options. Is that correct?"

"Yes, but I don't want to talk about it anymore than I have to," Fox said in a low voice. He almost sounded like Wolf rather than himself.

"That's acceptable," General Junior said before hanging up.

Fox sighed to himself. _I can't believe General Pepper is gone too, _he thought. _If only I could wake up and make this all go away. Maybe if I won the lottery someday, I can try to restart a team._ He continued to open the email folder. Nothing important revealed itself in his inbox, which was probably a good thing.

With one last hot hiss, the coffee machine finished. The pitcher made of plastic and glass was full of black coffee so strong that it made Fox's heart feel funny once he drank it. He put on his old gloves before picking up the pitcher and pouring it into a Styrofoam coffee cup he had used the day before. It still had a stain from last morning. He sipped. _I guess I should walk up to the bridge next, _he reasoned.

-X upstairs X-

Upstairs waited a spacious room full of various controls. An unexperienced or outdated operator would faint at its glory. So many advancements had been made in the past few years to prevent the next Andross or aparoids from having a chance at doing anything. Two wolves and a goat, all male, sat idle at various stations along the chambers many portal windows looking out at the surrounding space.

A green toad boy waltzed into the room. He had just achieved major improvements and maintenance tasks on this amazing new ship. "Good morning, Bob Bigfang, Huck Howling!"

"Morin'" Bob, the large red wolf barked back. "Morning bro!" the Brown Wolf, Huck, howled.

"und guten Morgen Johannes Johansson!" Slippy ribbited at the Goat.

Johannes was unamused "Slippy, for the love of all that is holy. I was born and raised on Corneria. I've never been to Ieden once in my whole life. I don't speak Iedenese. Please stop talking to me in Iedenese.'' Johannes bleated back. It had been around fifty years since Ieden, along with various other extra stellar furry civilizations had been known by Corneria. It was still uncommon to see them come and decide to live in Lylat though. It was even rarer to have members of their species raised in Lylat. The only thing Lylatians knew about Ieden for example was boiled lavender water, mountains, goats, and a few useless phrases from their language that they would learn from cereal boxes.

Slippy wilted back in embarrassment "Sorry, jeez. How was I supposed to know? Not to be rude, but you don't tend to see many extra stellar species around Lylat apart from felines."

"It's fine, I guess. It's just irritating. You're the fifteenth person this week who has said guten Morgen to me, and most of you don't even say it right!" he explained in an accent more similar to a surfer from an ocean world than a goat from an alpine world.

"Yeah, you'd think they wouldn't mistake you for being from Ieden since you don't sound like a Iedenite," Slippy agreed.

"You think you'd ought to have not mistaken me then?" Johannes retorted.

"Uh…yeah" Slippy was confused.

Wooden stepping noises could be heard from a distant corner. Fox arrived from downstairs with caffeine in hand. "Morning men," he grunted.

"Morning, McCloud," The wolves and goat resounded.

"Hi, Fox!" Slippy yelled. "You know guys there technically isn't really a morning in space."

"Slippy, it's just a formality based on Corneria City time. We need rest," Fox sighed. "I think I've already explained this to you before, long ago. Everyone here already knows it or at least doesn't want to question it because they enjoy sleeping."

"Would you rather be sleeping more?" Slippy asked.

"Of course, but I'm not going to," Fox whimpered.

The other staff members focused back on there little busy tasks. Fox sat down in a big velvet chair in the middle of the room.

"You know, this place is really nice," Slippy told him "It's a privilege to be working with its systems."

"I assume everything is working out for you Slippy?"

"Pretty much. Did Krystal call or text you last night?"

"Text. She sent me a picture of her stomach," Fox blushed.

"What? Is that some sort of fetish of yours?"

Foxes ears darted back, and he made a sour face "No! She's pregnant remember!"

"Oh yeah," Slippy blushed.

Fox relaxed then chuckled for a second. He spun around in his chair a single time. "Now that I'm over my morning sickness, I have to say that I appreciate this set up to an extent. Of course, I worry that if we don't get any action that I could gain weight or get muscle atrophy."

"Not you, Fox," Slippy nodded in disagreement.

"Anyway, don't you think this dumb monkey suit makes me look like a movie villain?"

"Kind of" Slippy smiled.

"Look at me! I'm Andross McCloud! I'm going to exterminate your planet!" he joked.

"Oh no!" Slippy squeaked "I'm Fox food!" he squealed in laughter.

"I'm not going to tell on you but making fun of state uniform is a federal offense in the Cornerian Republic," Johannes interrupted unapologetically.

"Oh really? God…" Fox scoffed.

"I didn't know that either!" Slippy was dumbfounded.

Johannes huffed and turned back around to his work.

"Well… back to professionalism, I guess. They better have a good health plan for us, at this rate we'll all need therapy before retirement."

Slippy nodded at Fox, this time in agreement. "You said it Fox. Anyway, I'm going to go check on the new S-wings. The manpower is coming in this Corneria-City-Time afternoon, I believe."

"Thanks for the confirmation again, have a nice day," Fox waved.

"You too," Slippy said before walking back to the elevator and heading down.

Fox turned his chair back towards the front view. He recollected. _They still haven't made it clear whether I'll be fighting anymore. I know I have lots of responsibilities on this ship as a captain, but I still want to help out the firefights. At least I'm not a general._

-X The Hangar X-

The big black hangar echoed with the sounds of landing rockets and squeaky footsteps. Only a violet transparent force shield separated the people in this essential chamber from the deadly soul sucking maw of the cosmos. They were all typical Cornerian canine species.

The screen buzzed as the final transport came from Corneria with the last couple passengers. The rounded white box dropped down into its parking space and dropped its side wall down with a big hiss.

"Greater Fox, Fortunan Orbit, Final stop. Get off!" a nameless robotic faux-fox driver informed his passengers. His programmer must had been a cranky person.

"Looks like we're here!" a redundant white folf commented to the other two passengers. He simply picked up his medic gear and ran off of the craft and onto the porcelain-like floor.

A strange figure with yellow fur and a CDF uniform looked over to the other remaining passenger. He had to had been from one of the other star nations beyond Lylat like Johannes. "Sheesh, was it something I said?" He sighed.

"Timuron, I think he just was eager to get to his job." The large meaty cobalt-colored wolf replied. He put his paw on the creature's shoulder.

"Thanks Cobalt," he sighed. His dragon-like muzzle facing the ground, he had two furred prongs on his upper lip and one on his lower lone. "I'm happy to finally be here but I'm going to have to explain what an Azdov is all over again. I love Lylat but it can get exhausting when I have to do that. I hope it goes better this time."

"I bet it will. Even if it doesn't, I'm here to help,'' Cobalt reassured the Azdov. "Besides, one you get past the whole acid spit thing, your species is very charismatic in my opinion!" This made Timuron laugh.

"I told you, get off! You're ruining my schedule!" The robot beeped at his reluctant passengers.

"Ya'r ya'r," Timuron shook his head. He stood up and brought his dragon-wolf-lion looking body out from the carrier and onto the hangar floor.

Cobalt soon followed wearing his matching old CDF outfit that was one or two years out of date. "I wonder if anyone else from the old training base is here?"

"Doesn't matter much to me. None of them ever clicked like you and I. Apart from Reno, hope he's doing well."

Meanwhile by some crates loitered some uppity dandy cadets with slick fur styles that one wouldn't think would be allowed. The Shiba, Spitz, and Malamute were all gathered around this tall sleek man. He was a young maned wolf with the dumbest rick-fuck face.

"Hah, and that's why my father owns so much stock in the military. Not just ours, but seven different space nations!" He narked to his smaller squish-faced friend.

"Oh! Kelvin! You're so cool!" The Shibe wowed with much enthusiasm. He even did a little step dance in place.

"Yeah! You're almost like, the next Star Fox!" The malamute chuckled.

"If you ever convert to mercenaryism I'd totally work for you!" The Spitz boy squeed.

"Nah, mercenaryism is so five years ago! I've got my own plans!"

"…well, what are they?" The Shiba murfed.

"Classified," he snipped. Suddenly, he stared off towards the shuttle that was taking off. Two men had gotten of it from the other side. He only saw their backsides. The dealings of the lower rankers wouldn't be his concern if it wasn't for something odd that he noticed. "Who is that? Next to that lupine over there? It looks like a lioness, whose ears got ran over by a car and were painted with black stripes by her daughter."

"A non-canine it seems. That's refreshing," his spitz lackey noted.

"I'll be the judge of that," Kelvin remarked as he stomped over to him like an anime antagonist. "Hey you!"

"Me?" Timuron turned around, Cobalt looking at him from his side.

Timuron's voice clarified that he was some sort of young man rather than a lioness, but his face revealed much more. His slanted nostrils and velvety triangular plate ears flared.

"The fuck!?" Kelvin yipped. "It's an extrasellar! I thought you guys were just science fiction."

"Uh- "Timuron was about to talk before Cobalt butted his muscle gut in-between the two. Cobalt towered over Timuron but still had to look up slightly when facing Kelvin.

"Yes, he is very much real. He's from the Azdov Imperial Milky Way Territory. He's an Azdov. He moved from Ornech in the neighboring Tyrva system," Cobalt barked.

"Why are you so defensive dude?" Kelvin said in a jerkish manner that almost sounded like the jab of a high person.

"Cobalt, he's just surprised to see one of me. It's fine!" Timuron said not wanting to start anything.

"If you say so…" Cobalt mumbled. He ambled back to the Azdov's side, getting out of Kelvin's way.

"Okay then. I have heard stories about your people. Violent anti-hominid zealots? Invaders from another galaxy? Vile acid bite?" Kelvin teased.

"…I…I…It doesn't apply to me! Not personally!" Timuron mumbled. Cobalt looked visibly nervous.

"Why are you here? Why are you fighting for us? Is it just because we're your precious fellow-furs?"

"For someone who claims to think I didn't even exist, you seem to know a lot about the past actions of the Azdov Empire. What's up with you?" Timuron raised an eyebrow. He grimaced as he felt very disturbed by the audacity of this strange looking wolfoid.

Kelvin broke out laughing. "Why? I'm Kelvin! Kelvin Celsius! Kelvin Celsius the great of MacBeth! I know all sorts of things! I'm the pinnacle of all fifteen to twenty-five-year olds in Lylat!" he laughed maniacally. His simple-minded goons laughed with him.

"Okay…Cobalt…. now I think we can go ahead and go somewhere else. This guy is weirding me out," Timuron sweated. Cobalt agreed with anger.

"What's the matter, Acid Dra- "the intercoms interrupted him as he was about to use a racial slur he wasn't supposed to know.

"This is Captain McCloud using the intercom, I'd like to inform you all that all of the shuttles have arrived. I will be down there in about twenty minutes to check you all out. Please get in a line and act professional."

"Ah, got to catch you later," Kelvin smiled. "Come on guys, let's get our show on. Fox has to know what legend will follow his won."

"Right!" They all yipped in tandem like little pets.

As they walked away, Timuron shivered. "I can't believe it," he uttered.

"What's an Acid Dragon?" Cobalt asked.

"It's something other furs use to dismiss Azdoves. They compare us to dragons to call us soulless, cultureless, and uncaring," he frowned. "Of course, It's not like we haven't earned that epithet. It's still offensive though."

"I'm sorry I said it Tim," Cobalt frowned.

"It's okay. Let's just get ready for whatever McCloud is doing with us."

"Okay, buddy," Cobalt nodded.


	5. Chapter 5 The Reflection

Fox ambled down one of the emptier gray side-hallways, taking the long way down to the hanger. His new grayish-green boot clacked against the shiny linoleum-like monotone floor. His own noises were becoming a source of anxiety as they piled up as a little thing on a big pile of other factors.

He'd been anticipating this for a while now but all of the pep talks that he simulated in the back of his mind never managed to prepare or help his emotions properly. He took a second to stop and look at his reflection on the floor for further mental processing.

"This…this doesn't mean anything," he mumbled to himself. "I'm still a fighter. I'm not a bureaucrat. I'm not!".

_How did I even get to this point? _Fox thought to himself in ire.

"Hey," the floor said back to him. It was his reflection. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. We've been over this many times, too many times to count. You know your situation."

"Yes, but of all the positions they could give me, why captain of a bigger ship?" Fox sighed.

"Well, in their eyes that's what you were doing before. While both of the old Great Foxes were much smaller than this polished federal monstrosity, they were still motherships non-the-less," the reflection responded.

"But I don't think they'll let me fight. I think they want me to just sit in the back of the fight and bitch at people while they get killed," Fox snarled.

The reflection shook his head with a smile. "Ah, but even if they didn't, do you think they'd really be mad at you if you did? These guys are really sweet for you, you're basically a mythological figure at this point."  
Fox blushed "I'm no god, you saw me fall apart on Papetoon. I'm pathetic."

"They don't know that, Fox. It's not about what's true. It's about what they think is true."

Fox looked at his reflection and nodded. "You're right. I can take up their little roll and still get some kills in."

"Get… get some kills in? I know you miss fighting but I'm sensing something off about how you said that. You feel different somewhat."

"No, shit!" Fox replied. "You've helped me enough, don't go ruining it."

Just as Fox said that Johannes from the bridge appeared in the hallway and interrupted. "Excuse me Captain McCloud, I was just going back to my living space to get something my friend left there the other night." He said as he was walking by.

"That's fine, sir." Fox said to the goat. _Oh god I sure hope he didn't hear me talking to my reflection._

"He totally heard you talking to yourself," the vulpine's reflection snickered.

Fox simply took in a deep breath and ignored his imaginary friend's non-existing remarks and continued down the walkway.

-X The Hangar X-

The pack of recent flight school graduates gathered around the center of the hangar in an open space waiting for their new boss. No longer being under the strict and harsh conditions of the academy and not yet under any direct commands from their new boss, they all took this opportunity as a brief time to relax and talk to each other as if they were high school students who had never drilled a day in their life. It was somewhat refreshing for them.

Some gossip still ensued as Cobalt sneered over at Kelvin whose maw seemed to be moving ever so slightly like that of a bumbling jerking saying things behind the backs of others. However, Cobalt couldn't read lips, so it looked like Kelvin was saying "Up and down with the pineapple, baby!" or something else nonsensical. It was bizarre that someone as immature as that maned wolf could make it this far in this career path, something was up with him.

While that occurred, one lone strange vixen leaned by a crate. Being the only female, she looked super pissed. "Hmpfah, what century is this?" she pouted. Nobody paid attention to her moping however, and this made her even more irate.

Steps echoed into the room hushing all of the rambling of the incessant noobs.

"Ey!" Fox yipped "Settle down! I don't want to be too uncool, but this is a formal federal military introduction, not a high school band club meeting," he said while raising his arms up into the air.

The useless rambles were killed by this announcement as all eyes turned to the vulpine captain in the green uniform. It was still very weird to see him in such stuck-up apparel. Even though they had all heard that he was going to be their captain they couldn't bring themselves to truly believe that he had really made such a strange job change until just now.

"Okay, okay. Let's…" Fox took a moment to try to gather his words. "Get in a line in front of me. This is just pure chaos. Sorry," Fox sounded just as shrill and demanding as he did when he was slightly younger. "Alphabetical order," He said, "by last name."

The pilots quickly scrambled to get into a more formal lineup.

"Which Lylatian letters is ''F'' between?" Timuron whispered to his lupine comrade trying not to be heard by anyone else.

"E and G," Cobalt reminded him.

"Dumbass," Kelvin muttered.

Timuron simply glared at Kelvin from a distance and said nothing.

After all of them were in a more organized position, Fox was able to take a crummy typed out list out from his pocket. For whatever reason he had printed the names onto a piece of notebook paper. He had folded it haphazardly in his pocket as well.

"First, rollcall, I have to make sure I got everyone I was told I was going to receive," Fox explained."

"Michael Androvinski, dog male, age 23?"

"Here, sir" a generic canine responded.

Fox followed up with "Kelvin Celsius, maned wolf male, age 20? -"

"Ah! That would be I! Kelvin!" The maned wolf boasted in an abnormal way. "You'll come to kno-"

Fox cut Kelvin off "Just say "Here", I want everyone to just say "Here""

"Huh?" Kelvin muttered softly _What kind of sorcery is this? No so-called superior of mine has resisted my natural charisma before._ He thought to himself.

Fox then continued down the list "Timuron…Faks?" Fox said with an eyebrow raised. He pronounced "Faks" like the Fax in Fax Machine. Even the strangled little piece of paper in his hands sagged in confusion. "azdov male, age 21…azdov?" Fox re-counted the people in front of him so that he could point out which one was the one that the paper was talking about.

"Sir?" Timuron interrupted.

"I didn't give you permission to talk but…do you have something you need to tell me?"

"I'm an Azdov, sir. I'm Timuron, sir. Also, Faks is pronounced like Fox, sir," Timuron sweated with his hand still raised like a school child, while still trying to maintain professionalism. Unfortunately, he might had failed at that.

Fox was about to call bull; be he saw the yellow creature's appearance and was hit with the bizarre reality that this wasn't an error of any kind. "Uh, sorry." Fox walked over to the young man and looked at his body from head to toe. It looked like he was a fur covered lizard or wingless dragon of some kind.

"It's fine, sir," Timuron concluded nervously. He put his hand back down.

"Why does he get to talk!?" Kelvin Celsius from earlier in the row interrupted. "He's a weirdo nobody from far space! My dad is rich and important! This is my sto- "

"Quiet! Who are you? Some sort of cliché antagonist!?" Fox barked angrily at the popular maned wolf. "This is disgusting and outrageous behavior! Especially when regarding a superior in a military situation going through a roll call! One more slip like that and you're out of here, maybe even in prison!... And say sir for now on!"

Kelvin silenced his chatter and pulled back his body and gave a big dark horrified and irked facial expression from the depths of heck. He couldn't believe that someone threatened to send him of all people to prison. He couldn't go to prison, knowing what he knew.

_Very well, you'll be on my bad side then, alongside the xeno and his fat-ass friend. For now, I'll submit to you, but you'll fall apart someday like the has been you are! _the evil maned wolf thought to himself in hatred of everything. Kelvin showed the signs of an obvious and shallow antagonist indeed.

All the other pilots looked at him as his absurd reaction invoked a less absurd confused reaction from them. In fact, the entire room was quiet for about fifteen seconds.

Fox coughed, "Now… where were we… Malinda Furry? vulpine…female?" Fox was baffled as he looked at the list over top the bottom several times. The only non-canid and the only female were right next to each other. What were the odds? "19 years old?"

"Here, sir," the gray fox vixen stated.

"…anything you have to blurt out? Or are we people ready to be mature?" Fox scoffed.

She nodded in agreement.

"Okay then."

Fox quickly rushed through the remaining sixteen names. Both him and his inferiors were tired of standing around in this now awkward situation. Cobalt Oxide had only a split second to respond to his name with a "Here, sir." It was very disappointing that this was how they were going to meet this famous war hero, but it was understandable considering the spectacle that had just occurred with Kelvin.

"Zach Zackson?" Fox said the last name, but no-one resounded back to him. "I guess he didn't arrive. I'll just notify the general about this later." Fox then left in an anticlimax. He turned his back to them all and fast walked the way he came.

Everyone started mumbling again.

"That was Fox McCloud?" one said.

"That's all he wanted from us?" Malinda sneered.

"I guess that is sort of disappointing." Timuron admitted. "What now?"

"Me and my boys are gonna go get lost, bye losers," Kelvin roared before turning away and walking off still upset from his realization that he's underneath someone else. It was hard to imagine how he even got this far with an attitude like that.

-X Later in the Living Quarters X-

The residential rooms were all in one hall downstairs from the hangar. While the hallways cooled and bored those who walked in it, the rooms themselves gave a more stuffy and warm presence. Each room contained two blue bunkbeds on a floor with thin indigo carpeting that looked like it came from some sort of doctor's office. The whole floor smelled like the basement of a college library all be it a nice one. Only one LED light shined in the room Timuron and Cobalt were walking too.

Malinda Furry was still very upset with her situation, yet she said nothing. The nimbly vixen with her panties in a twist waltzed into her new room with her viridian standard outfit purposely put on too tightly. Having things tight seemed to be her thing for some reason, because her suitcase was also shut very tightly. It exploded in relief once she laid it out on the bed and undid its zipper.

"Damn it, I knew I shouldn't had brought everything mother told me," she gasped at the clothing mess on her little cot. "Damn it, Damn it, Damn it!"

"There's no need for that, let me help," Cobalt interrupted.

"wrrrryyyyaaaaaaahhhhh! What the-! Why are you in my room! I hate chivalry!" she screeched in the fluffy wolf's face.

"Ma'am, this is my room, and Timuron's. You weren't told that this was your room, too were you?" Cobalt chuckled as he gave a worried expression.

"I got roomed with two guys!? What th-the-!?" She yipped and yammered and flailed around her clothes.

"Is something wrong?" Cobalt said.

Timuron walked over form the other bunk and addressed the strange roommate. "Look, they must not have had enough rooms for you to be kept separate from the guys. Don't worry, me and Cobalt are the least threatening guys here, you seem to be a very severe pessimist."

"Severe pessimist? What kind of nutjob phrases it like that!" The gray vixen nagged as she spun around to look at the other male roommate she was stuck with. "Eh…are you…like some sort of venomian-cornerian hybrid?"

"Malinda!?" Cobalt was offended for his friend by this remark.

"I'm an azdov, I'm zero-percent either. Calm down Cobalt, it's perfectly reasonable that she wouldn't know about azdoves. Jeez," Timuron interrupted Cobalt before he could say anything more.

"Fine," Cobalt pouted.

"You originally thought I was a horse, remember?" Timuron reminded him while he poked his shoulder.

"N-no need to remind anyone of that!" the wolf growled in response.

"Still, I can't change in this room or use the bathroom with you two here!" she pointed confidently as she made still good point at their faces.

"You could…use the woman's bathroom down the hall I guess," The azdov suggested to the gray vixen.

"This room doesn't even have its own bathroom you guys," Cobalt reminded them. "Haven't either of you paid enough attention to see that? No offense, Tim."

"…so, does that mean you do mean offense to me?" Malinda sighed.

"Let's just assume no," Timuron interrupted. "Anyway, just be glad you're sharing with two guys instead of three, and that you have a bunk to yourself. We'll try to keep off your side of the room."

"Fine," The vixen sighed and simply went back to tending her clothes, most of which were useless here. She had a bikini, there wasn't a pool on this ship.

-X Hallway from earlier X-

Fox traced the same hallway as before. He slouched and looked down thinking about his new office and tasks he still didn't want to do. He took off his hat with his left paw and grabbed the list from his pocket with his right paw.

He stared at the two items while taps rang in his ear from his monotonous steps.

"That was a pretty shitty performance- "his reflection said as it made a return. It walked backwards but in the same direction as him.

Fox tried ignoring it, but it kept following him.

"You looked like a lame gym teacher," it nagged.

"I'll reprimand that Celsius brat later," Fox stopped and barked at his reflection.

"How?" it questioned

Fox didn't know how, as he never had to before.

"I…I'll make him clean something,"

"Ooooh- scary," the reflection poked fun at him.

Fox bolted around and stomped his boot into the floor onto the reflection's face.

The linoleum cracked.

_What am I doing? _Fox thought to himself in outrage.

His pocket vibrated, the one that he had his cell comm in. Fox leaned against a nearby wall before answering it with a sigh

"Good Afternoon?" he answered with. He put his hand to his aching forehead.

"Fox!" Krystal exclaimed.

"Oh! Krystal, geez. I didn't expect it to be you! Hi!" Fox jumped.

"Don't just "Hi!" me! You haven't called me in three days. You promised that you would call every night!" she mumbled.

"I did? Yeah, I did. Look, these jerks have been giving me a ton of nauseous paperwork stuff to do on top of anything remotely cool. I also have to oversee Slippy calibrating things now, and now I'm getting some behavioral issues with some staff as well. It's a lot," Fox tried to stay calm in fear of hurting Krystal somehow, but he still talked a little fast.

"I'm sorry to hear that but how does that keep you from calling me before going to sleep though?" Krystal asked.

"Some nights I don't get sleep, and others I pass out without any warning. Believe me when I say I've tried to make time."

Krystal stood silent for a minute as she sat on her bed back on Papetoon. She tried her best to sense what Fox was feeling from that distance. "I…believe you," She sighed.

"Look, let's not make this call one big pity show. I can't afford to cry in front of everyone again!" He nagged her while holding back minor nausea.

"Right…well…um…uh…"

"Honey, did you have anything else to tell me? Anything at all from those other nights?" Fox interrupted her attempts to talk.

"Well… Your uncle made me a belated wedding gift slash baby shower gift yesterday."

"Ah, he did. I'm pretty sure he told me that he would. What is it?" Fox asked.

"I… don't know. I tried reading his mind to find out but that gave me nothing to go on either."

"That's my uncle all right," Fox giggled.

"One of their kits broke it this morning anyway, maybe I can find out what it is while I watch him fix it."

"Well surely you could just ask hi- "

"No, that would be very rude, Fox!"

"Fine, whatever you say." Fox took Krystal's word for it.

"Well…I should be getting a comm-mail in my office in a few minutes about my next instructions. So, I guess I should get off," Fox sighed.

"Fine, sorry, I love you," Krystal whimpered.

"Love you too," Fox said and hung up.

-X Somewhere on MacBeth X-

It was a hot and toxic evening in one of the far-flung forgotten corners of MacBeth, about two-thirds as bad as one would be on Venom. Its surface was comprised of dried up rock which in this specific region smelled rather acrid. This deep dark canyon was home to a Sulphur mine prison camp. Populated by debtors, traitors, and dissidents. Despite there being no moisture in the air, thunder sounded off in the distance as particles of dust rubbed against eachother. Blue lighting struck into the canyon for an instant, luminating one cube-shaped unit of prison-cells on its lip.

A Doberman stomped down a dark and unclean hallway full of pathetic screaming souls of angry, mentally tortured prisoners. The majority of them were reptiles from venom with their dried bumpy pelts and scroungy looking eyes. Among them were a few canines and felines, even some xeno species like that of Timuron's. However, the were strangely no primates. They were all in their underwear.

"Shut up! Shut up! It's not my fault you guys suck at following the rules of being useful workers! You all sit in there until you've learned your lesson!" He barked at them all as they banged the bars.

"Bullshit!" They all screamed. The grimy rooms were designed for only four prisoners, but each had around fifteen.

"Grah!" The Doberman yelled as he walked faster. He ran as fast as he could in his stupid cheap blue uniform. "What did the boss have this made from? Felt?" He slammed the metal door behind him to drown out the noise.

He patted his paw against the wall in the pitch-black room in search of the light switch. He nearly tripped and fell when a second lighting strike startled him, stubbing his foot in the process. "Yipe! Ffffffffffff- "he whimpered. With a satisfying click the light finally came on showing its old orange glow. The dog sighed in relief. That is until the light burst open blanketing the floor in glass and fizzing back into darkness.

"Come on!" he cried out. He then resorted to searching through his overstuffed pockets that he had on person. "Where is that dinky little flashlight he gave me for my birthday? There it is!" A tiny white light put a lame hole into the dark. He pointed it towards the floor in an attempt to help him tip toes around the glass. With a crunch he ultimately stepped on a shard anyway but then he realized that he was wearing boots, so it didn't matter.

Eventually, he found a chair, it was the computer chair. Hopefully the computer worked better than the light did. He sat down only for his butt to embrace hot glass, and this time his shoe wouldn't protect him. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasaarrrrrrrrfffffffff" he barked in pain.

"…I'll have to take care of that after I type up this comm-mail. The task at hand is always the number one priority," he told himself whilst trying not to cry in pain.

The computer turned on, it was even crappier and older than Fox's so it would be a minute or two before it was completely up. A dim green light was given off by the screen which still illuminated the room much better than the little flashlight could.

He searched his pockets a second time in order to find what he was supposed to type up. "Ah, here it is." He celebrated as he took the crumbled-up piece of writing paper from his coat pocket. He laid it onto the desk and smoothed it out. "I have to send this message to . from . , which I must first log in as using the provided password…well…what a vulgar password." He looked at the paper using the lame flashlight and the light of the screen. The screen went from green to white as it reached the desktop. The sticky keys snapped and clapped as the dim henchman stimulated the ancient device to please his master greatly.

The comm-mail read "Dear Captain Fox McCloud. We believe that after all of the occurrences that have happened to Corneria and its people in the past, now is the time to take advantage of the peace to put ourselves in a smarter and stronger position that denies any potential future enemy any chance of success or glory. For now, however, you can help just by doing simple exercises as commanded by the council.

Your squadron, the fleet of mothership greater Fox, has been assigned to exercise over Papetoon. A planet we believe we have neglected for too long. It would be great to have a presence there in the future.

We will email more details about the activity later, but for now just know that the jest of this exercise is to simulate an invasion of Venom using Papetoon as a launchpad. We are confident that Papetoon would cooperate against Venom if this scenario ever came to fruition. -Secretary of the New Defensive Council of Corneria and her possessions." He sent it.

-X Author's Note X-

Special Thanks to Nail Straifer for helping out with editing. He helped me get rid of some needless repetitive things amongst other stuff.


	6. Chapter 6 Email Received

-x- Captain Fox McCloud's Office -x-

The Greater Fox continued to float around Fortuna like it was on one of those lazy rivers they had at those resorts on Aquas. The Cornerian official time was about 2:00pm. Lylat's predominately blue rays had a slight green tint thanks to the verdant planet that stared through the window. The grand lights of the expensive personal office were off.

Fox's old school monitor suddenly blinked back to life with a splash of cyan light. It dinged.

Fox then barged in. He interrupted nobody. He had heard the ding as he was going through the doorway. He knew what it meant and approached his fake mahogany desk. "Oh, an email," he said. "It's from the new defense council that they've been talking about for months now. That's great!" Fox sat his aching posterior down and opened the email with a cool plastic click of his outdated greenish black computer mouse.

_Dear Captain Fox McCloud,_

_We believe that after all of the occurrences that have happened to Corneria and its people in the past, now is the time to take advantage of the peace to put ourselves in a smarter and stronger position that denies any potential future enemy any chance of success or glory. For now, however, you can help just by doing simple exercises as commanded by the council._

_ Your squadron, the fleet of mothership greater Fox, has been assigned to exercise over Papetoon. A planet we believe we have neglected for too long. It would be great to have a presence there in the future. _

_ We will email more details about the activity later, but for now just know that the jest of this exercise is to simulate an invasion of Venom using Papetoon as a launchpad. We are confident that Papetoon would cooperate against Venom if this scenario ever came to fruition. _

_-Secretary of the New Defensive Council of Corneria and her possessions._

It was all well and good that Corneria was still bolstering itself even in times of peace, but what really caught his eye was a single proper noun; Papetoon. This made him smile. He knew he ought to call Krystal back to tell her to look up at the sky when he got in Papetoon's orbit. He thought nothing about how this exercise may look aggressive towards Venom. Venom was so weak now that their opinion really no longer mattered to the CDF. This new NDCCP wouldn't care either.

While Fox was smiling, he was still only a little happy about the news. He was still going to be on this mothership doing his duties. Just because he was going to be over Papetoon didn't mean he was going to be allowed to check on Krystal in person or anything. He just thought to himself that it was comforting that he would be flying over her.

Fox extended his gloved hands onto the desk as he lifted himself back up from his console. His back made a slight cracking noise but he was able to ignore it this time.

-x- The Bridge (directly upstairs from Fox's office) -x-

Johannes arrived in the bridge control room using Fox's personal stairs and sat down at his desk next to his two lupine coworkers. They looked over various greenish monitors with yellow text. The letters spelled out the current stats of the Greater Fox from temperatures to completely gibberish things.

The red wolf, Bob, yawned "Nothing is happening." The seat creaked as he stretched back.

"Yep, no big potatoes right now," The brown wolf, Huck, replied with his legs crossed.

"I suppose I could take this as an opportunity to make some tea to help make this shift more variable," Johannes offered.

"I'm not really sure boiled lavender water counts as tea," Huck explained despite not be asked for his opinion on anything.

The goat then squinted in slight irritation "Why not?"

Huck raised an eyebrow before looking away from his screen "Well, tea is made from tea leaves. You boil tea leaves to make tea," Huck reasoned.

"But…" Bob interrupted as he shook his head as if he was personally offended "Rose tea is made from roses and that's still tea."

"No, it's not," Huck chuckled.

"It's not?" Bob said, like a big hurt baby. (Okay maybe he wasn't that upset.)

A normal sounding set of footsteps started clacking up the stairwell. It was fox.

"Forget it, the captain's back," Johannes sighed as he sat back down.

Fox walked up to the three. Fox would had smelled sweaty from the stress if it wasn't for the artificial smell of the uniform overpowering it. "Good Afternoon, I got some orders. We're moving the mothership to Papetoon's orbit," He smiled.

"Papetoon?" the lupines simultaneously asked.

Fox's smile faded as he wasn't amused by this reaction "Yes, just do it."

"Can't be any more remote than Fortuna," Johannes said as his hoof-hands started tinkering on the devices before him to get the move on the way.

"It is," Fox corrected him.

Huck and Bob started working alongside Johannes to initiate the move on.

"Time estimate please?" Fox asked.

"A full Cornerian day if the new engine is as powerful as the engineers say it is," Huck answered.

"Slippy was looking at it the other day and he told me that he had never seen this model before. Hopefully that is a correct assessment," Fox droned on as he walked away from them all and towards the window of the monochrome white room.

The space in front of his muzzle started to move and the green marble to his left started to slide out of the way. A big whoosh reverberated through the ship as the acceleration began. They were on their way.

Fox's reflection looked back at him. It looked just as happy about the relocation as he was. It smiled and then the real Fox smiled back.

-x- The Next "Morning" in the Living Quarters -x-

The lowly recruits had fallen asleep the prior night to the strange settling noises produced by the engine as the ship rushed towards Papetoon. In one of the small warm blue rooms two bunkbeds each laid against an opposite wall of the room. On one side Cobalt slept in the bottom bunk and Timuron took the top. Timuron was lighter than Cobalt so if the bed broke it wouldn't be as bad. Malinda slept in the bottom bunk of the bunkbed she had to herself on the other side of the room. A red line had been drawn on the bottom of the floor. The marker was still in Malinda's hand even as she slept. The LED light was off and the windows were covered up with white panels.

Timuron's eyes were shut tighter than the others but their eyes were all closed none-the-less. "Shaig shashd hni… Shaig shashsd hni, atat." the xanthous furred xeno mumbled in his sleeping breath. His slobber burnt the pillow under his head. His black-marked ears twitched. A slight vinegar smell emanated from him.

Cobalt didn't mind the vinegar smell or the sleep talking and continued to sleep soundly but Malinda was woken up. The poor gray fox covered her nose and grunted. She looked up across the room at the yellow alien making the noise and smell and steamed. She hated vinegar. She couldn't put on a nose plug or anything because canines sleep with their mouths closed.

She decided to duck her head under head bed and pull out her cellcom to check on her social medias. Surely keeping up to date with her gurus could keep her distracted from the smell. She had been following a blog of a Venomian ex-soldier woman who gave hair tips from when she hid in the jungle. Apparently it wasn't just cosmetic. She gave a lot of info on lethal parasites that she had to deal with. As interesting as the blog was Malinda still wasn't fully distracted from Timuron's jankey mouth business.

"Nai'l muka'd ma?" Timuron mumbled.

Malinda shot a look back to Timuron but he was still just sleep mumbling. Her sly eyes squinted. "Figures, if he was awake and talking he'd talk to her in Lylatian, not Azdov Language. Why did I have to be stuck with the fat guy and the foreign guy?" she whispered to herself. No one heard her.

A siren went off. It was only sound, no light. It sounded as if a robot monkey was having his tail being tugged on repeatedly by another robot which was laughing.

"EUGH!?" Cobalt yelped as he sprung up and hit his thick black muzzle on the top bunk. His sturdy yet soft blue arms sprang to his face to squeeze his muzzle with his ebony paws in pain.

Timuron sprung awake and blurted "Eir Amina!?"

"Cease sleeping!" a robotic voice dictated as the sirening faded back out.

"Looks like that's our alarm clock," Malinda said in a bitter voice.

"Whatever happened to the good old bugle thingy from the movies?" asked Cobalt.

"Yeah, the academy had one. Why not this place?" Timuron said. He sniffed the air and noticed the burn mark on his pillow. He responded by flipping it. "Looks like a drooled a little. I'll just wash that when it's permitted.

"You have serious morning breath dude, I could smell it from over here," Malinda complained.

The azdov grinned, showing his third prong and molars. "It's not vinegar. Vinegar is acetic acid. This is azdvoic acid," Timuron explained. "It's part of my digestive system." Timuron acted as if this fact wasn't totally disgusting to non-azdoves.

Malinda flinched "Okay then," she said. She kept her repulsion to herself at that point.

A knock occurred on the door. "Get into your uniforms and run twenty laps around the ship, then report to the mess hall for breakfast," a nameless figure said. "It's an exact order from the captain. It should sound pretty standard to you guys."

"It is," Malinda said. She had slept in sweatpants and a tank top. She decided rather than going to the bathroom to change she'd just put her uniform on top of her sleeping clothes.

The figure left to give the same orders to the others.

Cobalt had slept in boxers and a tighter tank than Malinda. He put his uniform on directly over his sleeping clothes as well.

The uniforms were white, gray ,and blue and had the default CDF logo on their sleeve. The logo simply being the letters CDF under a round thing with stars on it. The uniforms appeared to be some sort of flexible but tough fabric.

Timuron dropped out of bed already in uniform. He hadn't taken his off the other night. "Wait, we weren't supposed to sleep in it?" he smirked.

"I wouldn't had done that if it were me. You probably don't smell the best," Cobalt said.

Timuron responded without words. He got out a spray can of deodorant and sprayed his entire body. This made the others cough a little. "Okay let's go. Twenty laps! …Wait... how wide around is the ship?" he asked.

"About half a mile. It's a ten mile run," Malinda said as if this wasn't a huge task.

"Wh- but we're pilots! We don't even use our legs in action!" Cobalt said.

Malinda gave a jaded look to the blue wolf "Of course you would be the first to complain."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cobalt grumbled.

"Let's go!" Timuron bleated with a forced smile to try to break up conflict.

They followed Timuron and began their run.

-X- Hallway -X-

In yet another bland hallway, this one having a slight bluish tone, Fox emerged from a door that came from the laundry room. Fox had gotten up earlier today to get a few errands done. It was worth it to an extent. He was required to always be in a clean uniform every day but he actually had not managed to keep up with this all the way. He had been wearing a uniform without washing for two days before this. He felt more like a captain than he did a few hours earlier due to this.

He held two more copies of his outfit on his right arm to take back to his closet. His boots clacked against the cold floor. Fox decided to stop and stare at the shiny reflective ship wall again. However, it seemed his reflection wasn't a talkative this morning. It still talked some though.

"What?" It said to him

"Aren't you gonna say something? Something longwinded?" Fox asked it.

"No… oh wait, you were going to call Krystal about being near Papetoon," It said.

"Actually, I talked to her last night again. It was mostly small talk and I decided not to bring the location change up yet," He looked away from his reflection and sighed.

"Why not?"

"It wasn't really all that groundbreaking or relevant. It doesn't change anything," Fox sighed.

"But I thought you were going to tell her to look up and see you?" The reflection inquired.

"I don't know if you can actually see the greater fox from the surface."

"Why not ask your amphibian friend? He's super smart," The reflection said.

"Yes, but he's a mechanic. He's not an astrographer," Fox said.

"Actually, I thought he was," the reflection reminded him.

"He… he does do a thing with maps," Fox said as he brushed his chin and gave a tired look.

His reflection noticed a change in the real fox's fur. "Is that a goatee?"

Fox jumped back for a second and look his reflection over "I- think it is" Fox had dropped his clean outfits.

"You look like your d-"

"Nope, I do not need to think about him right now, fuck that. Respect to him but I'm trying to gather my emotional strength back up."

"Fine, geez. I think your bodily is metabolizing grief into anger."

"Sorry, anyway I suppose I could tell Krystal about the relocation tonight. She should at least get a little of a kick out of it."

Little did fox know, Slippy had walked in on him and picked up his clothes from behind him. He was going to simply give him his clothes back but now he had to comment on the self-talk. "Fox?"

"BAH!? Slippy!"

"You're… talking to yourself?" he asked.

"Yes," Fox sighed.

Slippy was intimidated even if just a little. He had been watching Fox slowly change over the past few months and he was afraid he'd see something like this. "Are you okay?"

Fox just stared down at the short green frog. From this angle Fox's bushy red face made him look like a homeless person stole a CDF mothership captain's uniform, after bashing his head in.

Fox. We need to talk more.

"We talk," Fox said.

"but more," Slippy argued.

"Sure," Fox nodded.

"No, Fox. This isn't normal."

"Nothing's ever going to be normal again ,Slippy!" Fox barked.

Slippy gasped for a second and shook his head. "I'm not talking about your life changes! Either of our life changes! I'm talking about you acting… different."

"Different how!?" Fox shouted but then caught himself. "Different how?" He said in a calmer voice.

"Well, you're talking to yourself."

"That much is obvious, Slippy."

"I mean…"

"You think I'm going crazy or something? I'm not, Slippy. Plenty of people talk to themselves," Fox shook his head.

"I didn't say that," Slippy didn't think Fox was crazy but it didn't sooth him that fox brought the notion of being crazy up.

Fox took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for raising my voice Slippy. Just… go and do your job. I promise I'll be okay."

"Okay…" Slippy said.

Fox stomped away. He stomped as loud as you could stomp without people thinking you were angry.

-X- Breakfast -X-

The sound of plastic trays and mouths echoed through the warm mess hall. The room was about a third the size of a medium size high school cafeteria. The walls wore a pale yellow paint that made everyone who looked at it confused. This was the only room with traditional walls in the whole ship. What were the ship designers thinking?

The pilots and some other ship crew members sat at six tables made of fake wood. Metal "chairs" were attached to the legs of the tables. The chairs had no support. Nobody seemed to care though.

Today's breakfast was canned baked beans, some sort of sausage like thing of unknown origin, and a dehydrated space tomato half. It came with a cup of water. Timuron Faks, Cobalt Oxide, and Malinda Furry returned from the food line. They continued to sweat from the pre-breakfast run they did.

Cobalt was panting like a feral animal as he slumped through the line. Timuron and Malinda nearly slipped in his sweat on several occasions. By the time they approached the tables, Cobalt seemed almost back to normal.

"I'm exhausted and starving, I'm so glad the run is over," Cobalt said.

"We're gonna do it every day," Malinda reminded him.

"I'll… get used to it."

"I know you can," Timuron said.

As soon as they sat down, Malinda wiped the last of the sweat off of her forehead then complained. "Um… what the heck is this?"

Timuron looked down at his plate. It had the same food. "That's what I always think when I look at food to be honest."

Cobalt "Well Malinda, It's beans and… I think the sausage is meat and- I don't know what the red thing is. I think it's supposed to be a tomato."

"Beans? A tomato? What kind of weirdo designed this breakfast!?" Malinda barked.

"I'm sure they tried their best," Cobalt said. "Any food is good food right now." Cobalt proceeded to suck up the sausage like food up like a big noodle.

Timuron proceeded to just pick up the tomato and sausage thing with his bare azdov hands and placed them in his mouth. The food immediately melted into a black goo in his mouth. A digestive byproduct smoke roared out from his nostrils.

Malinda coughed "What the- _cough_ heck is going on with him?"

"This is just how he eats," Cobalt said as if this was not super weird. People from the other tables started looking.

Timuron swallowed "Cox, you don't have to narrate my whole life. Not that I don't appreciate you trying to help."

Cobalt blushed "Tim, we talked about why that nickname doesn't work."

"Oops, I forgot, sorry," Timuron said. He then ate his beans.

"I… don't think I'm hungry," Malinda said. _Are these two a thing or something?_ she asked herself.

Some canine at another table turned their heads to something other than Timuron. This got Cobalt's attention as well. Someone was at the entrance of the mess hall. Everyone shifted their gaze to the opening of the room except Timuron.

It was the famous vulpine captain again . He stood straight in front of the whole room. Eating ceased. Fox's heard turned 160 degrees around in front of him to survey the room. Most of these fellow canines looked pretty dull. He could only recognize a few of them from the other day.

At the table farthest to the left, Fox recognized Cobalt, Malinda , and Timuron. Cobalt's black and blue fur was vibrant and his body seemed oddly plump for someone who made it through basics. Malinda stood out because, again, she was the only female present. Then there was Timuron. Fox squinted at him from a distance for a second.

Timuron didn't look at Fox directly until he realized that Fox was staring at him. He stared back in a way that apologized for his lack of attention prior.

_So… my memory wasn't playing tricks on me. That guy's real. _Fox thought to himself while maintaining his fake poker face. _Why is there smoke coming from his nostrils? Are those nostrils? Whatever._ Fox broke eye contact with the extrasellar and shifted his eyes to the right.

On the opposite side of the room was Kelvin. Kelvin wad the other person Fox actually remembered from the roll call. The young maned wolf's huge bright orange mane could be seen from a mile away. Kelvin's outrageous face struggled to look at anything seriously, even Fox at this very moment. Fox frowned. _That maned wolf jerk looks like Wolf if he was younger, dumber, and wore brighter colors.. and was a maned wolf._ Fox's vision pretty much skimmed over everyone else, even Kelvin's friends.

Everyone was tired of being stared at without any words. They were ready to hear whatever Fox had to say.

Fox's small goatee then dropped as his mouth opened at last. "I see that some of you have taken notice that we've relocated the Grater Fox to Papetoon." He walked forward to make his words feel less dead. "NDCCP, The New Defense Council of Corneria and her Possessions, is up and operating. Their first commands have to do with us in particular. Ultimately we plan to design and conduct an exercise that will simulate a Cornerian invasion of Venom.

_Didn't Corneria do that for real like 15 years ago? _Some of them thought to themselves. _Why would we need to simulate something that's already happened? _Others thought.

"However, I can't simply trust the flight school that you people can defend this mothership, let alone invade a planet," Fox explained. "Which segways into what we are actually going to be drilling today. We're going to be drilling ship combat, just everyday dogfighting. I'm having my mechanic disable your fighter's weapons and fitting them with a sort of laser tag like system." Fox gestured his hands as if he was mawking his own concept. "There will be two assigned teams, red and blue. A ship on a team will be adorned with a set of colored sensors and a colored faux-laser. When the laser's harmless light hits an enemy team ship, the sensor on that part of that craft will pick up data and tell the pilot what the ship's damage would be. If the sensor system gives you a notification that your ship would had been destroyed, you're out. If you're out, you go back to port."

"Yawn sounds like I'm in gym class in grade school," Kelvin whispered to his nameless Shiba friend.

"AHEM," Fox coughed. He didn't hear what Kelvin said but he knew he said something. "Anyway, I'll personally congratulate the team that wins. I'll give special regards to anyone who I think really carries their weight well. The drill will commence this afternoon at 2:30pm Corneria City Time at the hangar. Failure to be punctual will be reprimanded," Fox sighed. He turned around and left.

The vague threat Fox made about being late was meant for Kelvin, but he didn't seem to catch on.

The sounds of talking and eating inched back into the room as Fox left. Many of the voices seemed to be somewhat elated. They knew that this may just be an exercise but it would also be their first flight as real fighter pilots.

"The stories I heard about him always made him sound cooler than this," Timuron whispered to Cobalt.

"He was 18 during the Lylat Wars, Timuron. People change," he replied.

Timuron looked down at his plate in minor disappointment, only to then just shake it off. "I'm still really excited for this exercise though," Timuron grinned.

"I know right. It just feels so… gratifying. To finally be here," Cobalt said. "There were some points in flight school I felt like I was gonna flunk out or drop out."

"I remember how badly I underestimated how differently Lylatian fighters were from Azdov ones when it comes to how they handle," Timuron chuckled. "Heh… so many close calls."

"Um yeah," Cobalt wasn't as happy to remember incidents like the ones Tim was alluding too.

"Heh…" Malinda chuckled.

Cobalt looked at her. "What's so funny? You remember anything?"

"No, I was just thinking. What if you two ended up on opposite teams?"

"It's just a drill," Timuron said.

"Yeah," Cobalt defended him.

"Cobalt wouldn't mind me beating him, we're friends."

"That's right Timur- wait, what?"

Malinda laughed in full blast like a fool. However, once water came out of her nose and into the wrong tube she went from laughing to coughing.

Timuron and Cobalt laughed in return.

Malinda was no longer laughing. She grunted at them with a frown. She then smiled again.

-X-Author's Note-X-

I changed this chapter up in response to the review from Nail Strafer (Thanks for the feedback).

This update may not be the last version of this chapter though, depending on the feedback this update gets.


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